Sprague
Sprague names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Sprague FRANK JULIAN, an engineer and inventor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRANK JULIAN, an engineer and inventor, born in Milford, Conn., from the United States Naval Academy, in 1878, and served as engineer in the navy until 1883, when he resigned to attention to electrical work. devote his He founded, in 1884, the Sprague Electric Railway & Motor Co., which, using his constant speed electric motor, was the first to engage in general manufacindustrial ture and the introduction of electric motors. He was a pioneer in the electrification of railways, and in 1887 equipped the first modern trolley railway in the United States, in Richmond, many Va. He invented and perfected applications used in the electrical tems of railways. During the War he was engaged in the development of fuses in air and depth bombs. was a member and official of many scientific societies and was awarded many for his inventions. prizes and medals many scientific He was the author of papers on electricity.
Sprague LEVI L., an American educator
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LEVI L., an American educator, born in Beekman, N. Y., in 1844. He was educated at the Wyoming Seminary and Allegheny College, Pa. His entire educational career was spent at Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Pa., where he began teaching in 1868, and of which he became president in 1882. He took a prominent part in Methodist Episcopal affairs and was trustee of Wyoming Seminary, Syracuse University, the Wyoming Conference, as well
Sprague LEVI L. as a delegate to three General conferences
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LEVI L. as a delegate to three General conferences, in 1892, 1896 and 1904. He wrote Prac- "Practical Bookkeeping" (1873); " tical Grammar" (1894).
Sprague LEVI L. they are still further reduced
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
LEVI L. they are still further reduced; the ovule is the macrosporangium.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote this in 1921 while Frank Julian Sprague was still working; he died in 1934, by which time his reputation had settled as "the father of electric traction." The entry credits his Richmond, Va. trolley system (opened 1888) but says nothing of his two other lasting inventions: the electric elevator, whose business he sold to Otis, and the multiple-unit control system first used on Chicago's South Side Elevated in 1897, which lets one driver run a whole train of powered cars and remains the basic principle of every subway and commuter train today. The street railways he pioneered were almost entirely torn out of American cities between the 1930s and the 1950s in favour of buses and cars, though light rail has returned to dozens of them since the 1980s. Levi L. Sprague died in 1928; Wyoming Seminary, where he taught for sixty years, is still a school in Kingston, Pennsylvania. (The stray final line about ovules and macrosporangia is a scanning error from a neighbouring botanical article.)
Written for this edition, 2026.