Positive Effects on Light Bulbs

16 June 1976 Student Uprising in Soweto
When high-school students in Soweto started protesting for better education on 16 June 1976, police responded with teargas and live bullets. It is commemorated today by a South African national holiday, Youth day, which honors all the young people who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid and Bantu Education.
In 1953 the Apartheid Government enacted The Bantu Education Act, which established a Black Education Department in the Department of Native Affairs. The role of this department was to compile a curriculum that suited the "nature and requirements of the black people." The author of the legislation, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd (then Minister of Native Affairs, later Prime Minister), stated: "Natives [blacks] must be taught from an early age that equality with Europeans [whites] is not for them." Black people were not to receive an education that would lead them to aspire to positions they wouldn 't be allowed to hold in society. Instead they were to receive education designed to provide them with skills to serve their own people in the homelands or to work in laboring jobs under whites.
Bantu Education did enable more children in Soweto to attend school than the old missionary system of education, but there was a severe lack of facilities. Nationally public to teacher ratios went up from 46:1 in 1955 to 58:1 in 1967. Overcrowded classrooms were used on a rota basis. There was also a lack of teachers, and many of those who did teach were underqualified. In 1961, only 10 per cent of black teachers held a matriculation certificate [last year of high school].
Because of the government 's homelands policy, no new high schools were built in Soweto between 1962 and 1971 -- students were meant to move to their relevant homeland to attend the newly built schools there. Then in 1972 the government gave in to pressure from business to improve the Bantu Education system to meet business 's need for a better trained black workforce. 40 new schools were built in Soweto. Between 1972 and 1976 the number of pupils at secondary schools increased from 12,656 to 34,656. One in five Soweto children were attending secondary school.
This increase in secondary school attendance had a significant effect on youth culture. Previously, many young people spent the time between leaving primary school and obtaining a job (if they were lucky) in gangs, which generally lacked any political consciousness. But now secondary school students were forming their own, much more politicized identity. Clashes between gangs and students only furthered the sense of student solidarity.
In 1975 South Africa entered a period of economic depression. Schools were starved of funds -- the government spent R644 a year on a white child 's education but only R42 on a black child. The Department of Bantu Education then announced it was removing the Standard 6 year from primary schools. Previously, in order to progress to Form 1 of secondary school, a pupil had to obtain a first or second-degree pass in Standard 6. Now the majority of pupils could proceed to secondary school. In 1976, 257,505 pupils enrolled in Form 1, but there was space for only 38,000. Many of the students therefore remained at primary school. Chaos ensued.
The African Students Movement, founded in 1968 to voice student grievances, changed its name in January 1972 to the South African Students Movement (SASM) and pledged itself to building a national movement of high school students who would work with the Black Consciousness (BC) organization at black universities, the South African Students ' Organisation (SASO). This link with BC philosophies is significant as it gave students an appreciation for themselves as black people and helped politicize students.
So when the Department of Education issued its decree that Afrikaans was to become a language of instruction at school, it was into an already volatile situation. Students objected to being taught in the language of the oppressor. Many teachers themselves could not speak Afrikaans, but were now required to teach their subjects in it.
Soweto uprising
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The Soweto Uprising, also known as June 16, is a series of protests led by high school students in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June 1976.[1] Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools.[2] An estimated 20,000 students took part in the protests. The number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates of up to 700.[3][4][5] June 16 is now a public holiday, Youth Day, in South Africa, in remembrance of the events of 1976.[6] Contents * 1 Causes of the protests * 2 The uprising * 2.1 Casualties * 3 Aftermath * 3.1 International reaction * 4 In the media * 4.1 Radio * 5 See also * 6 References * 7 External links |
Causes of the protests
Black high school students in Soweto protested against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction.[7] The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from 1 January 1975, Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade), according to the Afrikaans Medium Decree; English would be the medium of instruction for general science and practical subjects (homecraft, needlework, woodwork, metalwork, art, agricultural science).[7] Indigenous languages would only be used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture.[8]
In the late 1960s and early 70s the system began to show distinct signs of wear and tear. Influenced by many events such as the death throes of colonialism in Africa, the rise of ‘Black Power’ in USA and a growing worldwide antagonism towards Apartheid - Africans began to fight back.
The association of Afrikaans with apartheid prompted black South Africans to prefer English. Even the homeland regimes chose English and an indigenous African language as official languages. In addition, English was gaining prominence as the language most often used in commerce and industry. The 1974 decree was intended to forcibly reverse the decline of Afrikaans among black Africans. The Afrikaner-dominated government used the clause of the 1909 Union of South Africa Act that recognized only English and Dutch (the latter being replaced by Afrikaans in 1925) as official languages as pretext to do so.[9] While all schools had to provide instruction in both Afrikaans and English as languages, white students learned other subjects in their home language.
Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying: "A Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well? … No, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa …"[10]
The decree was resented deeply by blacks as Afrikaans was widely viewed, in the words of Desmond Tutu, and later Dean of Johannesburg, as "the language of the oppressor". Teacher organizations such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa objected to the decree.[11] A change in language of instruction forced the students to focus on understanding the language instead of the subject material. This made critical analysis of the content difficult and discouraged critical thinking.[12]
The resentment grew until 30 April 1976, when children at Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their rebellion then spread to many other schools in Soweto. Black South African students protested because they believed that they deserved to be treated and taught equally to White South Africans. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Teboho 'Tsietsi ' Mashinini, proposed a meeting on 13 June 1976 to discuss what should be done. Students formed an Action Committee (later known as the Soweto Students’ Representative Council)[13] that organized a mass rally for 16 June to make themselves heard.
In a BBC/SABC documentary broadcast for the first time in June 2006, surviving leaders of the uprising described how they planned in secret for the demonstration, surprising their teachers and families (and the apartheid police) with the power and strength of the demonstration (see 'Radio ' section below).

The uprising
On the morning of 16 June 1976, thousands of black students walked from their schools to Orlando Stadium for a rally to protest against having to learn through Afrikaans in school. Many students who later participated in the protest arrived at school that morning without prior knowledge of the protest, yet agreed to become involved. The protest was intended to be peaceful and had been carefully planned by the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee,[14] with support from the wider Black Consciousness Movement. Teachers in Soweto also supported the march after the Action Committee emphasized good discipline and peaceful action.
Tsietsi Mashinini led students from Morris Isaacson High School to join up with others who walked from Naledi High School.[15] The students began the march only to find out that police had barricaded the road along their intended route. The leader of the action committee asked the crowd not to provoke the police and the march continued on another route, eventually ending up near Orlando High School.[16] The crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 students made their way towards the area of the school. Students sang and waved placards with slogans such as, "Down with Afrikaans", "Viva Azania" and "If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu".[17]
A 2006 BBC/SABC documentary corroborated the testimony of Colonel Kleingeld, the police officer who fired the first shot, with eyewitness accounts from both sides. In Kleingeld 's account, some of the children started throwing stones as soon as they spotted the police patrol, while others continued to march peacefully. Colonel Kleingeld drew his handgun and fired a shot, causing panic and chaos. Students started screaming and running and more gunshots were fired.[18]
The police loosed their dogs on the children, who responded by stoning the dogs to death. The police then began to shoot directly at the children.
One of the first students to be shot dead was 13-year-old, Hector Pieterson. He was shot at Orlando West High School and became the symbol of the Soweto uprising.[19] The police attacks on the demonstrators continued and 23 people, including two white people, died on the first day in Soweto. Among them was Dr Melville Edelstein, who had devoted his life to social welfare among blacks.[20] He was stoned to death by the mob and left with a sign around his neck proclaiming 'Beware Afrikaaners ' .[21]
The violence escalated as the students came under attack; bottle stores, and beer halls - seen as outposts of the apartheid government - were targeted as were the official outposts of the state. The violence abated by nightfall. Police vans and armoured vehicles patrolled the streets throughout the night.
Emergency clinics were swamped with injured and bloody children. The police requested that the hospital provide a list of all victims with bullet wounds. The hospital administrator passed this request to the doctors, but the doctors refused to create the list. Doctors recorded bullet wounds as abscesses.[13][19]
The 1,500 heavily armed police officers deployed to Soweto on 17 June carried weapons including automatic rifles, stun guns, and carbines.[13] They drove around in armoured vehicles with helicopters monitoring the area from the sky. The South African Army was also ordered on standby as a tactical measure to show military force. Crowd control methods used by South African police at the time included mainly dispersement techniques.
Casualties
The number of people who died is usually given as 176 with estimates up to 600.[22] The original government figure claimed only 23 students were killed[citation needed]. The number of wounded was estimated to be over a thousand men, women, and children.
Aftermath
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The aftermath of the uprising established the leading role of the ANC in the liberation struggle, as it was the body best able to channel and organize students seeking the overthrow of apartheid. So, although the BCM 's ideas had been important in creating the climate that gave the students the confidence to strike out, it was the ANC 's non-racialism which came to dominate the discourse of liberation amongst blacks. The perspectives set out in Joe Slovo 's essay No Middle Road - written at just this time and predicting the apartheid regime had only the choice between more repression and overthrow by the revolutionaries - were highly influential.[23]
The Soweto Uprising was a turning point in the opposition to white rule in South Africa. Formerly, the struggle had been fought outside of South Africa, mostly in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), South-West Africa (now Namibia) and Angola. But from this moment onwards, the struggle became internal and the government security forces were split between external operations and internal operations.
The clashes also occurred at a time when the South African Government was being forced to "transform" apartheid in international eyes towards a more "benign" form. In October 1976, Transkei, the first Bantustan, was proclaimed "independent" by the South African Government. This attempt to showcase supposed South African "commitment" to self-determination backfired, however, when Transkei was internationally derided as a puppet state.
For the state the uprising marked the most fundamental challenge yet to apartheid and the economic (see below) and political instability it caused was heightened by the strengthening international boycott. It was a further 14 years before Nelson Mandela was released, but at no point was the state able to restore the relative peace and social stability of the early 1970s as black resistance grew.
Many white South African citizens were outraged at the government 's actions in Soweto, and about 300 white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg 's city centre in protest of the killing of children. Black workers went on strike as well and joined them as the campaign progressed. Riots also broke out in the black townships of other cities in South Africa.
Student organizations directed the energy and anger of the youth toward political resistance. Students in Thembisa organized a successful and non-violent solidarity march, but a similar protest held in Kagiso led to police stopping a group of participants and forcing them to retreat, before killing at least five people while waiting for reinforcements. The violence only died down on 18 June. The University of Zululand 's records and administration buildings were set ablaze, and 33 people died in incidents in Port Elizabeth in August. In Cape Town 92 people died between August and September.
Most of the bloodshed had abated by the close of 1976, but by that time the death toll stood at more than 600.
The continued clashes in Soweto caused economic instability. The South African rand devalued fast and the government was plunged into a crisis. AT A GLANCE:

The modern world is an electrified world. The light bulb, in particular, profoundly changed human existence by illuminating the night and making it hospitable to a wide range of human activity. The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was invented in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. He was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent light bulb. | THE STORY
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DID YOU KNOW? | Invention: | electric light bulb in 1879 | | | Definition: | noun / electric light bulb / incandescent lamp | | Function: | An electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. Today 's incandescent light bulbs use filaments made of tungsten rather than carbon of the 1880 's. | | Patent: | 223,898 (US) issued January 27, 1880 | | | Inventor: | Thomas Alva Edison | | | Criteria: | First practical. Modern prototype. Entrepreneur. | | Birth: | February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio | | Death: | October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey | | Nationality: | American | | | | | The Story:
By the time of Edison 's 1879 lamp invention, gas lighting was a mature, well-established industry. The gas infrastructure was in place, franchises had been granted, and manufacturing facilities for both gas and equipment were in profitable operation. Perhaps as important, people had grown accustomed to the idea of lighting with gas.

Incandescent lamps make light by using electricity to heat a thin strip of material (called a filament) until it gets hot enough to glow. Many inventors had tried to perfect incandescent lamps to "sub-divide" electric light or make it smaller and weaker than it was in the existing electric arc lamps, which were too bright to be used for small spaces such as the rooms of a house.Edison was neither the first nor the only person trying to invent an incandescent electric lamp. Many inventors had tried and failed some were discouraged and went on to invent other devices. Among those inventors who made a step forward in understanding the eclectic light were Sir Humphrey Davy, Warren De la Rue, James Bowman Lindsay, James Prescott Joule, Frederick de Moleyns and Heinrich Göbel.

Between the years 1878 and 1892 the electric light industry was growing in terms of installed lights but shrinking in terms of company competition as both Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse determined to control the industry and its advancement. They even formed the Board of Patent Control, a joint arrangement between General Electric and the Westinghouse Company to defend the patents of the two companies in litigation. This proved to be a wise decision as over 600 lawsuits for patent infringement were filed.

The easiest way to understand those turbulent times in the early lighting industry is to follow the company 's involved. Of the hundreds of companies in the business, we only cover the major players. We show the flow of inventor 's patents and inventor 's companies and how the industry ended up monopolized by GE and Westinghouse. Company names listed in GREEN ultimately became part of General Electric. Company names listed in RED ultimately became part of Westinghouse.American Electric Company.
In the late 1870 's high school teachers Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston began experimenting with and patenting improvements on existing arc lamp and dynamo designs. In 1880 after being approached by a group of businessmen from New Britain CT, They all agreed to the formation of a company that would engage in the commercial manufacture of lighting systems (both arc and incandescent) based on their own patents. This was the American Electric Company which existed until 1883 when it was reorganized and was renamed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company.

Brush Electric Company
In 1880, Charles F. Brush forms the Brush Electric Company. That same year he installs the first complete eclectic arc-lighting system in Wabash, Indiana. Wabash was the first American city to be lit solely by electricity and to own its own municipal power plant (that small dynamo driven by a threshing machine engine). The installation in Cleveland the year before had been a demonstration, but Cleveland would soon begin lighting its streets with arc lamps as well. In 1876 Charles F. Brush invented a new type of simple, reliable, self-regulating arc lamp, as well as a new dynamo designed to power it. Earlier attempts at self regulation had often depended on complex clockwork mechanisms that, among other things, could not automatically re-strike an arc if there were an interruption in power. The simpler Brush design for a lamp/dynamo system made central station lighting a possibility for the first time. Joseph Swan sold his United States patent rights to the Brush Electric Company in June 1882. In 1889, Brush Electric Company merged into the Thomson-Houston Electric Company.

Edison Electric Light Company
In the period from 1878 to 1880 Edison and his associates worked on at least three thousand different theories to develop an efficient incandescent lamp.Edison’s lamp would consist of a filament housed in a glass vacuum bulb. He had his own glass blowing shed where the fragile bulbs were carefully crafted for his experiments. Edison was trying to come up with a high resistance system that would require far less electrical power than was used for the arc lamps. This could eventually mean small electric lights suitable for home use.By January 1879, at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, Edison had built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting. Still, the lamp only burned for a few short hours. In order to improve the bulb, Edison needed all the persistence he had learned years before in his basement laboratory. He tested thousands and thousands of other materials to use for the filament. He even thought about using tungsten, which is the metal used for light bulb filaments now, but he couldn’t work with it given the tools available at that time. He tested the carbonized filaments of every plant imaginable, including bay wood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, and bamboo. He even contacted biologists who sent him plant fibers from places in the tropics. Edison acknowledged that the work was tedious and very demanding, especially on his workers helping with the experiments. He always recognized the importance of hard work and determination. "Before I got through," he recalled, "I tested no fewer than 6,000 vegetable growths, and ransacked the world for the most suitable filament material." Edison decided to try a carbonized cotton thread filament. When voltage was applied to the completed bulb, it began to radiate a soft orange glow. Just about fifteen hours later, the filament finally burned out. Further experimentation produced filaments that could burn longer and longer with each test. By the end of 1880, he had produced a 16-watt bulb that could last for 1500 hours and he began to market his new invention.

In Britain, Swan took Edison to court for patent infringement. Edison lost and as part of the settlement, Edison was forced to take Swan in as a partner in his British electric works. The company was called the Edison and Swan United Electric Company (later known as Ediswan which was then incorporated into Thorn Lighting Ltd). Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan 's interest in the company. Swan sold his United States patent rights to the Brush Electric Company in June 1882. In 1889 the Edison Electric Light Company merged with several other Edison companies to become the Edison General Electric Company. When the Edison General Electric Company merged with Thomson-Houston in 1892, a bitter struggle developed, Edison 's name was dropped, and Edison himself had no more involvement with the newly formed General Eclectic Company beyond defending his patents.In 1903 Willis Whitnew invented a filament that would not blacken the inside of a light bulb. It was a metal-coated carbon filament. In 1906, the General Electric Company was the first to patent a method of making tungsten filaments for use in incandescent light bulbs. The filaments were costly, but by 1910 William David Coolidge had invented an improved method of making tungsten filaments. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types of filaments and Coolidge made the costs practical.

Edison & Swan United Electric Company
In Britain, Joseph Swan took Edison to court for patent infringement. Edison lost and as part of the settlement, Edison was forced to take Swan in as a partner in his British electric works. The company was called the Edison and Swan United Electric Company (later known as Ediswan). Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan 's interest in the company.

General Electric Company
In 1892, a merger of Edison General Electric Company and Thomson-Houston Electric Company created General Electric Company. General Electric, GE is the only company listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Index today that was also included in the original index in 1896. Sawyer & Man Electric Company
William Sawyer and Albon Man are issued Patent No, 205,144 on June 18, 1878 for Improvements in Electric Lamps. In 1884, Albon Man formed the Sawyer & Man Electric Co for the purpose of protecting the Sawyer-Man electric lamp patent. William Sawyer had died the previous year. In 1886, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company purchased the Sawyer & Man Electric Company and began making incandescent lamps under the Sawyer-Man patents.

Swan Electric Light Company
Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was a physicist and chemist born in Sunderland, England. Swan was the first to construct an electric light bulb, but he had trouble maintaining a vacuum in his bulb. In 1850 he began working on a light bulb using carbonized paper filaments in an evacuated glass bulb. By 1860 he was able to demonstrate a working device, and obtained a UK patent covering a partial vacuum, carbon filament incandescent lamp. However, the lack of good vacuum and an adequate electric source resulted in a short lifetime for the bulb and an inefficient light.

Fifteen years later, in 1875, Swan returned to consider the problem of the light bulb and, with the aid of a better vacuum and a carbonized thread as a filament. The most significant feature of Swan 's lamp was that there was little residual oxygen in the vacuum tube to ignite the filament, thus allowing the filament to glow almost white-hot without catching fire. Swan received a British patent for his device in 1878
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Swan had reported success to the Newcastle Chemical Society and at a lecture in Newcastle in February 1879 he demonstrated a working lamp. Starting that year he began installing light bulbs in homes and landmarks in England. In 1880, Swan gave the world 's first large-scale public exhibition of electric lamps at Newcastle upon Tyne England. In 1881 he had started his own company, The Swan Electric Light Company, and started commercial production. Swan took Edison to court in Britain for patent infringement. Edison lost and as part of the settlement, Edison was forced to take Swan in as a partner in his British electric works. The company was called the Edison and Swan United Electric Company (later known as Ediswan). Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan 's interest in the company. Also in 1882 Joseph Swan sold his United States patent rights to the Brush Electric Company, a successful "arc" street light manufacture.

Thomson-Houston Electric Company
In the late 1870 's high school teachers Elihu Thomson, a teacher of physics and chemistry, and Edwin Houston, a science teacher, began experimenting with and patenting improvements on existing arc lamp and dynamo designs. In 1880 after being approached by a group of businessmen from New Britain CT, Thomson & Houston agreed to the formation of a company that would engage in the commercial manufacture of lighting systems (both arc and incandescent) based on their own patents. This was the American Electric Company which existed until 1883 when it was reorganized and was renamed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. . The company became quite successful and diversified into other electrical markets. In 1886 they purchased the Sawyer & Man Electric Co. and began making incandescent lamps under the Sawyer-Man patents. In 1889 in an attempt to avoid patent disputes over a double-carbon arc lamp design, Thomson-Houston negotiated the purchase of a controlling interest in the Brush company. The Swan Incandescent Light Company was part of the Brush plant so it was included in the takeover. In 1892 Thomson-Houston merged with the Edison companies to form the giant General Electric Company.

United States Electric Lighting Company
Founded in 1878 by the prolific inventor Hiram Maxim, the United States Electric Lighting soon established itself as Thomas Edison 's chief rival in the field of incandescent lighting. The company made some of the earliest installations of this new technology using Maxim 's patent on a carbon-filament lamp, which was similar to that invented by Edison in 1879. When Maxim left USEL in 1881 to pursue other lines of invention, the company purchased the Weston Electric Lighting Company in Newark, NJ, and the services of its founder Edward Weston. The inventor of a successful "arc" lighting system, Weston, as works manager and chief designer of USEL, developed a comprehensive arc and incandescent system which the USEL began to market in 1882. In January 1882, Lewis Latimer, an employee of USEL, received a patent for the "Process of Manufacturing Carbons," an improved method for the production of light bulb filaments which yielded longer lasting bulbs than Edison 's technique. In 1888, United States Electric Lighting Co. was purchased by Westinghouse Electric Company.

Westinghouse Electric Company
In 1886, George Westinghouse formed the Westinghouse Electric Company. The main function of the Electric & Manufacturing Company was to develop and produce "apparatus for the generation, transmission and application of alternating current electricity." The company also produced electric railway motors, producing approximately 75,000 by 1905.Weston Electric Lighting Company
Founded in New Jersey by Edward Weston in 1880, the company 's innovations included the Weston standard cell, the first accurate portable voltmeters and ammeters, the first portable light meter, and many other electrical developments. In 1881, the United States Electric Lighting Company purchased the Weston Electric Lighting Company, and the services of its founder Edward Weston. The inventor of a successful "arc" lighting system, Weston, as works manager and chief designer of USEL, developed a comprehensive arc and incandescent system which the USEL began to market in 1882.

Woodward and Evans Light
On July 24, 1874 a Canadian patent was filed for the Woodward and Evans Light by a Toronto medical electrician named Henry Woodward and a colleague Mathew Evans, who was described in the patent as a "Gentleman" but in reality a hotel keeper. They built their lamp with a shaped rod of carbon held between electrodes in a glass globe filled with nitrogen. Woodward and Evans found it impossible to raise financial support for the development of their invention and in 1875 Woodward sold a share of their Canadian patent to Thomas Edison.

The Edison Vision
The economic effect of electric lighting went far beyond increasing the workday. Profits generated by the electric lamp, in effect, paid for a network of generators and wires. This infrastructure then became available for a whole new class of inventions: appliances and equipment that by the 1930s had transformed the home and the workplace.

Edison didn 't just invent a light bulb, either. He put together what he knew about electricity with what he knew about gas lights and invented a whole system of electric lighting. This meant light bulbs, electricity generators, wires to get the electricity from the power station to the homes, fixtures (lamps, sockets, switches) for the light bulbs, and more. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle--and Edison made up the pieces as well as fitted them together. He did it his way. |

References: Birth: | February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio | | Death: | October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey | | Swan Electric Light Company Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was a physicist and chemist born in Sunderland, England