Samuel Insull

Samuel Insull was a British-American utility executive who built Commonwealth Edison in Chicago into one of the largest electric utilities in the United States and pioneered the business model of the modern power company, including large central generating stations, load diversification across many customers, and the metered pricing structures that made electricity affordable to ordinary households. He was an early advocate of holding companies as a way to finance and coordinate electric utilities across many communities, building an empire that at its peak supplied electricity to millions of customers across several states. His financial empire collapsed spectacularly in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash, and Insull was tried, and acquitted, on fraud charges, a scandal that helped drive federal regulation of utility holding companies in the 1930s. Despite his downfall, the operating structure he built for large-scale electricity generation and distribution became the standard model followed by American utilities for decades afterward.