The Standard of living prior to Thomas Edison's great inventions was of poorer quality. Up to the latter half of the nineteenth century, the machine had always been closely bound to its prime mover (Baldwin 50). It could not be placed too far because of the inefficiency of belts and shafting as a method of distributing energy (Clark 53). Energy and power is everything, it is the key to a working invention. Each gear, joint, or wheel was a source of power loss (Conot 43). …
