The electric lamp business. Part 1: Edison and the gas companies

The electrical industry was born into an era of cheap coal and readily available steam power, so that for many years the only service that electricity could hope to offer in competition with its established rivals was the provision of cheap and convenient lighting. The whole industry was thus dependent on the success of electric lighting, and on the profits of the electric-lamp business in particular. The story of the electric-lamp business, from the pioneering days of Swan and Edison to the international price-fixing rings of the 1930s, is thus the story of the birth and adolescence of the whole electrical industry