# Timeline of the electric motor

Electric motors have a long history going back to the early nineteenth century.

## Nineteenth century

| Date, Name | Electric Motor Chronology | Selected Patents |
| 1740s, Andrew Gordon and Benjamin Franklin | British (Gordon), American (Franklin); experimentation with electrostatic motors. | |
| 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted | Danish, physicist and chemist; first to note a compass needle deflected from magnetic north when an electric current from a battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. | |
| 1820, André-Marie Ampère | French, physicist; invented the solenoid. | |
| 1821 Michael Faraday | British, scientist; showed continuous 'electromagnetic rotation' resulted by suspending a magnetic wire in an electric field; | |
| 1822, Peter Barlow | British, physicist; invented Barlow's wheel, the first device ever powered by electromagnetism. | |
| 1824, François Arago | French, physicist; showed a rotating copper disk produced rotation in a magnetic needle suspended above it, which Faraday later attributed to induction phenomena. | |
| 1828, Ányos Jedlik | Hungarian, physicist and unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor; invented the first commutated rotary electromechanical machine with electromagnets. He invented the commutator. In 1828, Jedlik demonstrated the first device to contain the three main components of practical DC motors: the stator, rotor and commutator. | |
| Before 1830, Johann Michael Ekling | Austrian, mechanic; constructed an electric motor according to the plans of Austrian physicist Andreas von Baumgartner. | |
| 1831 Michael Faraday | British, scientist; discovered and investigated induction law in terms of electric current generation in a varying magnetic field. | |
| 1831, Joseph Henry | American, physicist; Created a mechanical rocker, which he however describes as a philosophical toy. | |
| 1825–1833 William Sturgeon | British, scientist; 1825 – invented the electro-magnet; 1833 – built first commutated rotating electric machine that was demonstrated in London. | |
| 1832–33, Hippolyte Pixii | French, instrument maker, built the first AC generating apparatus out of a rotation; and, the following year, an oscillating DC generator. | |
| 1833, Joseph Saxton | American, inventor; demonstrated a magneto-electric machine before the British Association for the Advancement of Science. | |
| 1833, Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz | German; formulated the law of reversibility of generators and motors. | |
| 1834–1839, Moritz von Jacobi | German-Russian, engineer and physicist; built a 15 watt motor in 1834 submitted to the Academy of Sciences in Paris with details published in 1835; demonstrated first use of electric motor to propel a boat; first real useful rotary electrical motor. | |
| 1837, Thomas Davenport and Emily Davenport | American, blacksmith-inventor and inventor; obtained first US electric motor patent. | US 132 |
| 1837–1842, Robert Davidson | Scottish, inventor; developed electric motors for a lathe and a locomotive. | |
| 1838, Solomon Stimpson | American; built a 12-pole electric motor with segmental commutator. | US 910 |
| 1840, Truman Cook | American; built electric motor with a PM armature. | US 1735 |
| 1845, Paul-Gustav Froment | French, engineer and instrument maker; first of various motors; first motor translated linear "electromagnetic piston's" energy to wheel's rotary motion. See also Mouse mill motor. | |
| 1856, Werner Siemens | German, industrialist; invented generator with a double-T armature and slots windings. | |
| 1861–1864, James Clerk Maxwell | British, scientist; reduced electromagnetism knowledge in four key equations. | |
| 1871–1873, Zénobe Théophile Gramme | Belgian, engineer; developed the anchor ring motor which solved the double-T armature pulsating DC problem; at Vienna exhibition, demonstrated to great effect ability to transmit between generator and motor 1 km apart. | |
| 1879, Walter Baily | British; based on Arago's rotations, by manual switching on and off, developed the first primitive commutatorless induction motor. | |
| 1880, Marcel Deprez | French engineer; by the progressive shifting of a magnetic field through the mechanical commutator in regular order around a center, electric currents are being developed by induction in a rotating metal mass without sliding contacts or commutator. | |
| 1885, Galileo Ferraris | Italian, physicist and engineer; invented the first AC commutatorless induction motor using two-phase AC windings in space quadrature. Delivered a paper on it in April 1888. | |
| 1887, M. Borel | Constructed a two-phase motor where the rotor is set in rotation by the combined rotating field produced with two sets of coils. | |
| 1887, Helios Co. | Based on Coerper's patent, Helios Co. constructed the first 3-phase motor with three slip-rings. The project was dropped in 1890 as they could get satisfactory results using a 2-phase current. | |
| 1887, Friedrich August Haselwander | Friedrich August Haselwander develops the first AC 3-phase synchronous generator in Europe. The patent application filed in July 1887. His first generator of this type went into operation in October 1887. | |
| 1887, Charles S. Bradley | Motor/generators with a Gramme ring, having multiple radial connectors, led off at corresponding symmetrical points to slip-rings. He thus obtained alternate currents differing in phase. | US390439A |
| 1887–1891, Nikola Tesla | Serbian-American, engineer and inventor; having worked independently from Ferraris, presented a paper in May, 1888 to AIEE describing three patented two-phase four-stator-pole motor types: one with a four-pole rotor forming a non-self-starting reluctance motor, another with a wound rotor forming a self-starting induction motor, and the third a true synchronous motor with separately-excited DC supply to rotor winding. Westinghouse acquired exclusive rights to the Tesla patents as well as the Ferraris design and retain Tesla as a consultant for a short time to work on development of these motors. | US 0,381,968 US 0,381,969 US 0,382,279 US 0,382,280 |
| 1886, Frank Julian Sprague | American, industrialist; development of new constant-speed DC motor, which allowed the Sprague company to issue the world's "first important industrial electric motor catalogue". | |
| 1889–90, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky | Polish-Russian, engineer and inventor; invented the first cage and wound rotor versions of the three-phase induction motor that are still widely in use today. | |

## Twentieth century

| Date, Name | Electric Motor Chronology | Selected Patents |
| 1905, Alfred Zehden | German, a feasible linear induction motor described in patent form for driving trains or lifts. | U.S. patent 782,312 |
| 1935, Hermann Kemper | German, built a working linear induction motor | |
| 1945–1949, Eric Laithwaite | British, first full-size working model of linear induction motor | |