Edwin James Houston was an American electrical engineer, inventor, businessman and author who lived from July 9, 1847 to March 1, 1914, born in Alexandria, Virginia. While teaching at Philadelphia's Central High School he worked alongside his student colleague Elihu Thomson to help design an arc-light generator, and in 1882 the two co-founded the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to manufacture and sell the design, building it into one of the most influential companies of the early electrical industry. In 1892 Thomson-Houston merged with the Edison General Electric Company to form General Electric, with Thomson-Houston's own leadership taking control of the combined company. Houston later left manufacturing for consulting, forming a partnership with Arthur Kennelly in 1894 that produced a long series of educational books on electricity, magnetism and the natural sciences, served as president of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers from 1893 to 1895, held academic posts at the Franklin Institute and the Medico-Chirurgical College, and received an honorary doctorate from Princeton University.
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