Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American engineer and physicist. This guide provides access to materials related to the “Nikola Tesla” in the Chronicling America digital collection of historic newspapers.
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About Chronicling America
Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
Introduction
Described as “a genuine poet of electricity,” Nikola Tesla paves the way for scientific and social breakthroughs with his discovery of an alternating current electrical system, creation of “artificial daylight,” and ambitious theories on interplanetary communication. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
Timeline
1883
Tesla came to the United States and began working at Edison’s lab.
1886
He formed Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing.
1888
Tesla invented the first usable Alternating Current motor.
1893
Demonstration of alternating current generators at the Chicago World’s Fair, lighting thousands of incandescent light bulbs.
1896
The first Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant opened, which Tesla designed to harness the energy of the Falls and convert it to electricity.
1898
Demonstration of Tesla’s remote controlled boat in New York, the first remote control device.
1902
Construction on Wardenclyffe, Tesla’s laboratory facility is completed.
1915
Tesla’s financial problems caused him to lose the lease on Wardenclyffe. It is eventually used for scraps during World War I.