George Westinghouse Jr.

Hello there. My name is George Westinghouse Jr. You might not know my name, but I bet you use my ideas every single day when you turn on a light. I was an inventor, which is like being a professional problem-solver. I spent my life looking for ways to make the world a better and safer place with new machines and big ideas.

I was born on October 6th, 1846, in a small town in New York. My father owned a shop where he made machines for farmers, and I loved it there. The whirring and clanking of the machines was like music to my ears. I was always tinkering, taking things apart to see how they worked and trying to build my own inventions. When I was just 19 years old, in 1865, I received my very first patent for a new kind of steam engine.

One day, I saw a terrible train crash. The trains couldn't stop fast enough to avoid hitting each other. It made me so sad, and I knew I had to find a solution. Back then, each train car had a person who had to turn a wheel to apply the brakes by hand. It was slow and dangerous. So, I invented a special brake that used air pressure. My air brake, which I patented in 1869, let the conductor stop all the train cars at the exact same time, just by pulling one lever. It made traveling by train so much safer for everyone.

My biggest adventure was with electricity. Another famous inventor, Thomas Edison, had a system called direct current, or DC. But DC power couldn't travel very far. I believed a different kind, called alternating current, or AC, was much better. I teamed up with a brilliant scientist named Nikola Tesla to show the world the power of AC. It was a big competition. In 1893, we got the job to light up the gigantic Chicago World's Fair. It was a magical sight with thousands of glowing bulbs, all powered by our AC system. A few years later, in 1896, we used AC to send power from the mighty Niagara Falls all the way to the city of Buffalo. We had won the 'War of the Currents'.

I created over 360 inventions and started more than 60 companies in my life, including the Westinghouse Electric Company in 1886. I lived to be 67 years old. Today, people remember me for making trains safer and for building the electric system that still powers our world. Every time you flip a switch and a room lights up, you are using the amazing power of alternating current that I helped bring to everyone.