Chapter I: Introduction
I. The Older the Better
Gerard Oyens was not keen on being upstaged by the British. But in March of 1881, he was
worried he might be - and justifiably so. Oyens had just been tasked with organising the
Netherlands’ contribution to the Paris Electrical Exhibition of 1881 and, from his perspective
at least, things had not gotten off to a good start.
The idea behind the Electrical Exhibition was that every country in the world could present
the newest electrical devices its engineers and scientists had developed. The grand total of
these separate, national sections to the Exhibition would then amount to a spectacular
celebration and public demonstration of the immense progress that had been made in the field
of electrical science in the space of just a few decades. As one official announcement
published in France stated: “This exhibition will comprise everything to do with electricity: it
will bring together apparatus of various types and various origins which serve to generate,
transmit and use electricity.”
The Paris Exhibition was not the first large-scale international exhibition. Ever since the Great
Exhibition held in London in 1851, a veritable hype had developed around what came to be
known as the World’s Fairs, with every country that could afford to do so organizing various
international exhibitions on a wide variety of topics. The exhibition in Paris was, however, the
first that was devoted exclusively to electricity. What prompted it were the groundbreaking
developments that had occurred over the course of a fairly short period preceding the
exhibition. Not many years had passed since James Clerk Maxwell published his theory of
electromagnetism for instance, and even more recently patents had been filed for the electric
telephone and the electric light bulb, by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison
respectively. The world was quick to realise the far-reaching implications these and other
inventions had, and the Paris Exhibition can be seen as the epitome of the excitement they
generated, both amongst the general public and amongst scientists and engineers. The
exhibition itself was held from August until November 1881 at the Palais de l’Industrie on the
Champs-Élysées, and it was accompanied by a four-day conference to which specialists from
all over the world were invited. One “hot topic” at this conference was the establishment of
standard units to describe electromagnetic phenomena.
1 “Cette exposition comprendra tout ce qui concerne l’electricité : elle réunira les appareils de toute nature et de
toute provenance servant à la faire naître, à la propager et à l’utiliser.” A. Cochery: “Congrès International des
Électriciens, Exposition internationale d’électricité, Paris 1881, Rapport au Président de la République”, c.
01.1881, The Hague, NL-HaNA, WHN / Handel enNijverheidl, 2.16.60.04, inv.-nr. 287.