Abstract
Arc lighting powered from central stations preceded the better-known incandescent electric lighting powered from central stations and thrived well into the 20th century. After its introduction in 1880, incandescent electric lighting began to displace gas lighting in small indoor environments, but it failed to make inroads into arc lighting for streetlights and large indoor areas before high-intensity light bulbs were developed. In 1887, one-half of the generating capacity of central stations in the United States came from arc light dynamos <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[1]</xref> . In 1900, only 158 000 arc lamps valued at $1.8 million were in use in the United States, compared to about 25 million incandescent bulbs valued at $4 million, but that comparison is incomplete because 173 million arc carbons were consumed that year, with a total price tag of $1.3 million <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref2" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">[2]</xref> , each carbon burning only for about 8 h, compared to hundreds of hours per incandescent bulb.
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