A new art display highlights Pittsburgh’s role in electric power history

Charles Steinmetz, William Stanley Jr., Edith Clarke — while perhaps not household names, these are some of the people whose discoveries built the electric grid you’re relying on to read this very article. These pioneers and more are cited in a new wall display in Benedum Hall that describes centuries of innovation in electric power and Pittsburgh’s undersung role in that history.

“These figures on the wall are some of the giants in our field,” said Brandon Grainger, an associate professor and Eaton Faculty Fellow in the Swanson School of Engineering.

The idea for the display came from Grainger, who had long seen the potential dormant in the blank wall outside the Electric Power Systems Lab across the hall from his office. Even though students encounter Faraday’s Law or the Clarke Transformation in their classes, they may not know anything about the people behind those names. Clarke, Grainger explained, was the first female professor of electric engineering in the U.S. and made discoveries that are foundational to the electric power grid.

The display, made in collaboration with Amy Kleebank and Chris Markle in Pitt’s Office of University Communications and Marketing, features a timeline of significant events in electric power history — a history in which the region plays a big role. Pittsburgh industrialist George Westinghouse was an early champion of alternating current, the technology that the grid now relies on to transmit electricity over long distances. Pitt’s electrical engineering program also owes its existence to Westinghouse, who recruited the department’s first chair in 1893.

[Read more about the history and future of Pitt’s electric power program.]

Grainger hopes the display will inspire the students and parents who visit to think about their place in electric power history.

“I’ve always gotten a high off of just looking at these historical figures and seeing what they’ve done, how they overcome their challenges,” he said. “I think it just excites people.”