Downtown Manhattan alone would have 1,500 arc lights by 1893, as well as twenty light and telegraph companies, each running independent sets of wires carrying varying voltages (if direct current systems) or operating at distinct rates of oscillation (if alternating current systems). Chicago, at roughly the same time, was home to forty different electric companies, most of which were associated with competing streetcar lines. Direct current operations offered power at 100, 110, 220, 500, 600, 1,200, and 2,000 volts, with one or more dedicated systems of wires for each.
