What Davenport could not anticipate, and what no one else would describe for another 20 years, was that his motor would be turned by water or steam power and would operate in reverse, as an electric generator. Within 40 years of his death, electric-powered trains and trolleys had become common, with Davenport's machine creating electricity at the power station and his motor then converting this electricity back to mechanical power to move the cars.
Thomas Edison invented the electric lightbulb in 1879, using a chemical battery to power his experiments, but he recognized the need for central generating plants and distribution systems to provide electricity to customers. In 1882, his Pearl Street station in lower Manhattan used steam engines to drive shunt-wound brush and commutator dc generators of the type that Thomas Davenport had invented 45 years earlier. Recognizing that expanding demand would require a massive new manufacturing and service industry, Edison started a manufacturing facility in Schenectady that would become the General Electric Co. The company's first products were motors and generators that copied the design and principles of Thomas Davenport's motor.
When Edison died in 1931, it was suggested that all the electricity should be turned off for five minutes in recognition of the great inventor, but such an action was judged to be practically impossible. The ultimate tribute to Edison was that within his lifetime the benefits of his inventions had become such a vital part of daily life.
Davenport died 30 years before the world was ready for his invention. Today, the electrification of the world and electricity's myriad of now-vital uses can be seen as the greatest technological marvel in human history. Electric light has extended full human activity to 24 hours per day. Electric-powered refrigeration is now taken for granted. Air conditioning has made the most inhospitable regions comfortable for year-round living and spawned new major cities. Our communications, computing, and information systems could not exist without electricity. Thomas Davenport, though little remembered today, played a vital part in making all of this possible.