No, it is not that "Edison and Westinghouse" were working with AC. It was Westinghouse to promote AC.
Thomas Alva Edison was against using AC, and he did a lot to promote the DC (see: "
War of the currents") until 1891. In 1884, Edison Company built the first powerplant in Berlin (not clear if that was DC or AC). Meanwhile, Emil Rathenau established a company to later become AEG. Already in 1887, Rathenau employed Michail von Dolivo-Dobrowolsky who put the first three-phase motor in operation (it requires AC). In 1891, the Rathenau company could already transmit high voltage AC energy between two distant cities.
Edison switched to AC in 1892. The Berlin company began distributing 230 V in 1899 because an improvement over Edison's light bulb allowed more household voltage. It seems to me that if they were using AC like America, they would have distributed more efficient voltages and customers would have had safer voltages.
Edison and his staff made the light bulb marketable. He predicted that it would not really be a success until somebody invented a good switch. It was an immediate success for commercial and industrial buildings because brighter, safer, cheaper lighting made operations independent of daylight. For the homeowner, the issue was inconvenience. He wouldn't have redundant circuits or a custodian who knew how to replace a switch. When one failed, he'd be in the dark.
Few Manhattan residents wanted electricity, but it was a big hit for street lights, stores, and factories. It was soon popular for industrial machinery. Before, you had to run a steam engine or water wheel to turn overhead shafts that powered machines through belts. It was inefficient and dangerous. Edisons low-voltage DC was fine for factories that sewed garments, but induction motors were better for larger machines. Instead of hooking up with Edison, I imagine some simply put alternators on their steam engines, to power lights as well as motors. Next, you would have multiple factories jointly operating a steam alternator. That could explain Edison's quick turnaround.
In 1904, Duke Power built a series of hydroelectric dams on the Catawba River because AC could be sent many miles to power textile mills. In 1913 they started a residential branch. Appliances such as washers, irons, refrigerators, toasters, and vacuum cleaners had made residential electricity more popular, but most rejected it on account of the poor reputation of wall switches. The man who built my house in 1900 was an example. The town had been a few shops across from the railroad depot in 1918 when electricity made it a textile town. The homeowner paid to have power brought to his house, but not actually to the house. Where his windmill had been, he erected a concrete building similar to a garage. The back housed an electric pump so that his tank wouldn't run low during windless periods. In the front was a single outlet for an electric washer, much less laborious than the hand-cranked one. He moved his coal-fired water heater from the kitchen to the laundry, keeping the house cooler in summer.
In 1919, 40 years after Edison marketed his bulb, only a third of American homes had electricity, and that was to power appliances. In 1920, residential electrification took off. In ten years, 2/3 had it, and there was such a clamor from the rest that Congress voted to fund the Tennessee Valley Authority. Someone had finally invented a good wall switch. In 1924, six years after the original owner rejected residential electricity, my mother's father bought the place and had it wired. Two of the original switches are inside the front door, providing reliable service after 100 years. (The electrician who did the marvelous knob-and-tube retrofit was electrocuted shortly afterward. He was on a pole installing lighting at a baseball field, so it may have been 230 VAC.)
Meanwhile, in 1906 my father's father took charge of the steam power station that provided electricity to a chain of mills. My father said that in 1919 he filed a patent on the yoyo, but it had already been invented. My cousin said no, it was something for which he received large royalty checks for many years. Nobody knew what he'd invented until I found it online. I recognized the internal workings from a wall switch I'd once taken apart. I recognized the outside because it's identical to the two my mother's father installed in 1924.
Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse were publicity hounds. It took a REAL inventor to make electric power worthwhile!
