The Victorian Era’s Revolutionary Changes
Just like the rapid pace of change in our world today bewilders many, the Victorian era witnessed massive and revolutionary changes, not just in Britain, but all over the world. Chief among those changes was the introduction of electricity into everyday life. Across the Pond from Britain, railroads knitted America together, the importance of factories, mining, and finance increased by orders of magnitude, immigrants arrived by the tens of millions, and cities and homes began to be lit and powered by electricity.
Electricity had been around for some time. However, it took Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943), a Serb inventor who arrived in America with four cents in his pocket, to make the things that made electricity a part of everyday life. Among other things, he invented fluorescent lights, electric generators, the FM radio, spark plugs, remote controls, robots, and the Tesla Coil that is used to transmit radio and TV broadcasts. Shortly after Tesla arrived in the US, Thomas Edison hired the brilliant but naïve new immigrant to redesign his electrical generators and perfect his light bulb.
