>>8048725 LB
do you mean Samuel Insull?
Digging. TY anon.
To answer at this point:
A/C vs D/C long distance: DC is very expensive, and AC has the ability to be stepped down and up via a transformer. Both make AC more viable over long distances (which the US has a lot of)
As for the history of AC, interestingly I've never looked into it. It appears a bunch of french inventors created the first AC instruments. Hippolyte Pixii in 1832. The first practical use of AC was by Guillaume Duchenne for use in "electrotherapy."
Then, later, AC was developed by the Ganz Works company in Hungary, and even later (1880s) by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, Lucien Gaulard, and Galileo Ferraris.
Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs creation of a particular transformer interested Westinghouse. Westinghouse then adapted these eurodesigns for US use.
This was furthered by the works of Ferraris and Tesla when they created, independently, the first AC induction motors.
Fundamentally AC is hard to meter, no? Hence the interest by Edison and his backers (the cult) in DC over AC. Think about automobiles that use induction motors instead of gas engines. The same group Edison was involved with (vanderbilts, rockefellers, ford, eastman, gannett, firestone etc.) all had vested interest in the Seneca Oil which would be used to power Ford's cheap vehicles.
Where does Samuel Insull come in?
It would appear on the surface that Morgan, and Vanderbilt bankrolled him through consolidation efforts (their modus operandi) of the electric industry. The first major effort being the consolidation of Edison General Electric with the Thomson Houston Electric Company.