Charles Steinmetz and Thomas Edison at 1911 Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies, Thousand Islands, New York

By 1911, Charles Steinmetz was a well-known leader in the electrical engineering field. He directed the Consulting Engineering Department at General Electric, a company that had its roots in Thomas Edison's early electric light manufacturing companies. Though the press exaggerated the relationship between these two "wizards" of science, Edison and Steinmetz admired one another's work and conducted some joint research.