Frank Julian Sprague ~ the "Father of Electric Traction"

Frank J Sprague was one of the world’s great electrical inventors. Using his unique constant speed motors he pioneered the use of electricity to first power electric street railways (trolleys), then elevators, and finally urban transit systems such as elevated railways, subways, and commuter rail. Combining these systems with his pioneering multiple unit control system (MU) he transformed urban transportation on a national and ultimately global scale.

When he died in 1934, the New York Herald Tribune described Sprague as one of the three greatest American inventors of the age, along with Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison, his first employer. "Perhaps no three men in human history have done more to change the daily lives of human kind. Certainly no three have been been responsible of greater progress in the use of electricity."  (See Middleton, p. 268-269 for the full quote.)

In the years following Sprague's death, his name faded away, in large part because he sold his primary inventions to other companies: his electric motor business to Edison General Electric, his elevator business to Otis Elevator, and his multiple unit control business (the first Sprague Electric Company) to General Electric. 

In 1899 he married Harriet Chapman Jones, and his life broadened in new directions. The first of their three children was Robert Chapman Sprague, who later founded the second Sprague Electric Company. Harriet opened up Frank's social sphere to include such luminaries as Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), author Oliver Herford, and professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University. Meanwhile, he continued to work with the same intensity that marked his entire career. His endeavors included the electrification of Grand Central Terminal, the Naval Advisory Board during World War 1 (of which Edison was the chair), development of a dual-elevator-in-a-single-shaft system, the creation of the Sprague Safety Control & Signal Corporation, and design of technology to create large moving signs with lightbulbs.

In recent years a number of biographies and papers on Sprague have been published, with the aim of highlighting and restoring public awareness of his life and work. On this site, we are continuing this endeavor, by showcasing and offering links to the relevant published works, and supplementing these with essays and further information on Sprague's legacy.

Frank J. Sprague and North Adams:

Frank Julian Sprague’s lineage in the New World began in 1629 when Ralph Sprague and his two brothers from the Upwey Hamlet in Devonshire, England, sailed on the Lion’s Whelp for Salem, Massachusetts. Following arrival, as the family expanded during the remainder of the seventeenth century, they settled primarily in Massachusetts, many in Malden. While Ralph was a founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts and one of its early leading citizens, subsequent generations were primarily farmers, millers, and sturdy New England landowners. There also were adventurers, such as Ralph’s son, John, who fought in the gruesome King Philips War of 1676, while later Uncle Joshua crossed the plains in a prairie schooner heading for the California gold fields. The first Spragues in North Adams apparently arrived in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, probably seeking work in the young and vibrant textile industry. Yet nowhere in Frank’s ancestral biography was there any hint of the inventive genius he would demonstrate after entering the world in the mid-1800s . . . .  (more)