The Interesting History of the Electrician Trade

An electrician is a tradesman or a skilled worker that specializes in the electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines, transmission lines, and other related equipment. They are the ones you hire for installing new electrical components, and as well as for the repair and maintenance of existing electrical infrastructure. Aside from that, Sortedelectrical.com specializes in wiring airplanes, ships, and other mobile platforms, and as well as cable and data lines.

The development of being an electrician is very interesting for a trade that is highly important and used throughout the world. From the discovery of electricity to the invention of many devices, wiring, and appliances, there were always those people who were willing to test and innovate to make the vast number of electrics that we see today. Through time, the profession of the electrician has developed to the highly demanded and skilled trade that we usually see today. Make sure you contact a professional Chicago Electrician to handle all your electrical needs.

If you want to know more about how electricians started, you’re in the right place. Today, we are going to talk about the interesting history of the electrician trade.

an electrician looking into wires

Origins of Electricians

Electricians are known to install, repair, and maintain different electrical equipment and appliances. The need for this largely came from the desire of the public for new appliances, and as well as from the development of electricity and all the things we can do with it.

Amazing advancements in electrical technologies for residential and industrial use were seen during the late 19th century. These include the lightbulb invention of Thomas Edison in 1876. When products like this started to be advertised at expositions and world fairs, the profession of the electrician also became popular.

In fact, the demand for these devices immensely increased, and people who could make these devices were offered a highly lucrative business. This is where we first started to see electricians appearing across the world like inventors. They are the ones who always try to find new ways to change the way different devices are operated.

The Transition of Electricians into the Modern Role

As the 19th century came, electrical devices became more and more common. At the end of the 19th century, lighting, wiring, and other electrical devices became highly popular, with households starting to be able to buy these systems. It means that people began to move away from more usual oil and lamps and began to look into switching to lighting systems for their homes via electricity. With this, electricians of the late 19th century were offered three specializations, with electricians specializing in industrial electrics, commercial electrics, and domestic electrics.

an electrician fixing electrical wires

Development to the Modern Electrician

At the start of the 20th century, lighting systems started to become commonplace in residential buildings. With this, the demand for electricians increased dramatically because most people had electricity in their homes.

Electricians started to specialize in different fields. For example, some focused on large-scale systems like electrical networks power systems, while others learned to work with smaller-scale systems, like computers and small circuits. This led to various areas of expertise from the electrician in installation, repair, and maintenance, which includes electricians who are specifically trained for certain appliances like TV repair.  As a part of that tools and instruments from the likes of Vanguard Instruments became very important.

As electricity is known to be highly dangerous, the need for engineers and technicians that understood these dangers and ways to be safe around electrics became much more important. Towards the end of the 20th century, the divide into industrial, commercial, and domestic specializations became even more straightforward, and it separated electricians into these categories, with each one having to learn particular skills to install, repair, maintain, and test electrical equipment for safety. With this, specific skills and trainingwere required to ensure that the profession was supported with training and professionalism.

Safety became a very important part of the electrician’s trade because of the risk involved, not only for the electricianbut as well as for everyone involved with electrical appliances, such as homeowners. With this, portable appliances testing was introduced.

Conclusion

It is easy to see why the role of an electrician is very important. As electrical appliances and other devices are becoming more and more advanced, the skills of fully qualified and trained electricians are also becoming more in demand. Using electricity as an energy source is continuously diversifying, especially today that solar energy systems are being installed, which convert to electricity.With this, the electrician trade will need to break into many more fields in order to learn their trade and use it safely and efficiently.

We hope the information we shared here helped you in further understanding the history of the electrician trade.