Halacsy and Von Fuchs Documentation for Transformer History
name: label: Creator
content: Von Fuchs, George, Dr.
label: Creator
content: Halacsy, Andrew, Dr. (electrical engineer)
label: Names
content: American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
topic: label: Topic
content: Electrical engineers
creator: label: Creator
content: Von Fuchs, George, Dr.
label: Creator
content: Halacsy, Andrew, Dr. (electrical engineer)
abstract: label: Summary
content: Contains information directly relevant to the transformer's 1884-1885 evolution and secondary references and articles which von Fuchs and Halacsy referred to in their research.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Dr. Andrew Halacsy and Dr. George von Fuchs concentrate on the 1884 and 1885 development of the transformer and have written several papers together on the transformer's creation. They brought this documentation together in 1960, when both were members of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.

When Michael Faraday discovered the induction principle in 1831, he found that if a conductor were put into an alternating current path, then a voltage would be induced in the conductor.  Until 1884 this discovery was not followed up, but as the means of production for AC power expanded, inventors began searching for ways to control this energy form. The final product of two years of patent competition based on Faraday's induction work was the modern transformer.

If a voltage were induced in the core of the transformer by the input AC source, then an output AC source could be started from the induction begun by the magnetic flux in the core. Essentially, energy can be transferred from a primary AC source to a secondary AC source by purely electromagnetic means. Induction replaces an electrical connection.  If the primary leg contains more wire coils than the secondary, then the transformer drops voltage over the core and is called a step-down transformer.  If the secondary coil is built with more wire coil than the primary, voltage is increased over the coil, and the device becomes a step-up transformer.
Several transformer models were produced in the U.S. and foreign countries in 1884, but the Hungarian three man team of Deri, Blathy, and Zipernowsky are credited with the first industrially useful construction.  In 1885, at a Budapest exhibition, first utilized a closed iron core and first connected the primary and secondary in parallel.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.66 Cubic feet (2 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1884-1885
container: label: Container
content: Box 1
label: Container
content: Box 2
custodhist: label: Custodial History
content: Collection transferred to the Archives Center from the Division of Electricity (now Division of Work and Industry) May 27, 1983.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0052
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Chronological arrangement.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Collection processed by Robert Harding, 1983
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: The collection is divided into two boxes- the-first containing information directly relevant to the transformer's 1884-85 evolution and the second containing secondary references and articles which von Fuchs and Halacsy referred to in their research.  The original material box contains the following: eight figures of inventors and their developments; patents submitted between 84 and 85 and divided into the four categories of parallel, series, open iron core, and closed iron core; a paper by the compilers on transformer history; and an assorted collection of mimeographs of research notes and correspondences.  The reference box contains secondary articles on the history of the transformer which were written by both American and German authors at the time of the advances and recently.