George Westinghouse

George Westinghouse Jr. was born on October 6, 1846, in Central Bridge, New York, and learned machining and mechanical skills in his father’s shop rather than by extended formal schooling; he briefly attended Union College but left to pursue practical invention and business projects. As a young man he produced early inventions including a rotary steam engine and devices for railroads, displaying both mechanical talent and entrepreneurial drive from his teens. In 1869 Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company (WABCO) after inventing and patenting an automatic air‑brake system for railroads, a breakthrough that greatly improved train safety and became widely adopted by the railroad industry. The commercial success of the air brake provided capital and credibility that enabled Westinghouse to expand into other industrial fields and to found additional companies. In the 1880s Westinghouse turned his attention to electrical power distribution and became the leading American proponent of Nikola Tesla’s alternating‑current (AC) patents, buying rights to Tesla’s AC motor and employing Tesla to develop AC systems suitable for commercial use. Westinghouse Electric, founded in 1886, competed fiercely with Thomas Edison’s direct‑current (DC) interests in what contemporaries called the “war of currents,” culminating in high‑profile demonstrations (including lighting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition with AC) that helped establish AC as the dominant long‑distance power transmission system. Beyond invention and corporate building, Westinghouse is remembered for progressive labor policies and paternalistic employee programs—introducing a five‑and‑a‑half‑day work week, half‑holidays on Saturdays, improved wages and benefits, and worker housing initiatives—which earned him strong loyalty from many employees and set him apart from many contemporaries in U.S. industry. He continued to invent throughout his life and accumulated several hundred patents, and his firms grew to employ tens of thousands worldwide by the turn of the 20th century. Westinghouse died on March 12, 1914, leaving a lasting industrial legacy through companies that evolved into major electrical and engineering enterprises.