Early Career
Prior to working with Edison, Brown labored as a salesperson for the Western Electric Company and the Brush Electric Company, selling electrical devices, most notably Edison’s electric pen. However, the ambitious Brown aspired to be more than a salesman. Edison was his role model. Still, with little formal training in the field of science or invention, Brown failed in securing several patents of his own.
His golden opportunity came during the hey-day of the War of Currents between alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). Brown would side with Edison and DC and staked his career on proving that AC was more deadly than DC and thus should not be used as the current of choice for powering electrical devices in homes.
Read more about this topic: Harold P. Brown
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or career:
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)