John Kruesi (May 15, 1843 – February 22, 1899) was a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

-born

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...

, and close associate of

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

Career

John Kruesi had been apprenticed as a locksmith in Switzerland, and migrated to the United States where he settled in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

. Edison employed him for his workshop in 1872. Kruesi became Edison's head machinist through his Newark and Menlo Park periods, responsible for translating Edison's numerous rough sketches into working devices. Since constructing and testing models was central to Edison's method of inventing, Kruesi's skill in doing this was critical to Edison's success as an inventor. Historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel summed up Kruesi's remarkable ability of this: :If the devices that emerged rom Kruesi's workshopdidn't work, it was because they were bad ideas, not because they were badly made. And when the ideas were good, as in the case of the phonograph, the product of Kruesi's shop would prove it. (Friedel and Israel 1987, 35) Kruesi was also involved in many of Edison's key inventions. Including the quadruplex telegraph, the carbon

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

and system of

electric lighting An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...

. With the development of Edison's system of electric lighting, Kruesi moved to more management positions. In 1881, Edison put Kruesi in charge of the ''Edison Electric Tube Company'', making him responsible for the installation of underground power distribution cables from the central generating station. Kruesi was also an inventor, while at the ''Electric Tube Company'', he devised a two wire conduit in which two semicircular conductors were separated by an insulator and covered in insulating material. Kruesi became assistant general manager of the lower Manhattan '' Edison Machine Works'' in 1894.John F. Wasik, The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, Macmillan - 2008, page 28 The ''Edison Machine Works'' moved to Schenectady, NY in 1886 and was merged into ''Edison General Electric'' in 1889. When that company merged with several others to form ''

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

'' in 1892, Kruesi was promoted to General Manager, and then to Chief Mechanical Engineer at the Schenectady site in 1896.

Notes

References

IEEE Global History Network, John Kruesi
* Hammond, John Winthrop. ''Men and Volts, the Story of General Electric'', published 1934 by J.B.Lippincott Company. Citations: Assistant General Manager Edison Machine Works – 149; came to Schenectady – 149; Consulting engineer – 245, 276; Edison's machine-shop expert – 22; Manager Schenectady Works – 197, 242. * Friedel, Robert, and Paul Israel. 1987.'' Edison's electric light: biography of an invention.'' New Brunswick, New Jersey:

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

Press.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kruesi, John 1843 births 1899 deaths American engineers Machinists People from Newark, New Jersey Swiss engineers Engineers from New Jersey Swiss emigrants to the United States