John White Howell

John White Howell (December 22, 1857 – July 28, 1937) was an American electrical engineer who spent his entire professional career (1880 to 1930) working for Thomas Edison, specializing in the development and manufacturing of the incandescent lamp.

In 1924 Howell was a recipient of the IEEE Edison Medal for his contributions towards the development of the incandescent lamp. Howell later co-authored the book History of the Incandescent Lamp, the authoritative source for the identification and description of Edison lamps.

Howell attended Rutgers University, College of the City of New York, and the Stevens Institute of Technology.

John W. Howell, electrical engineer, was born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, December 22, 1857, son of Martin Armstrong and Abigail Lucetta (Stout) Howell. His earliest paternal American ancestor was Edward Howell, who came to America from Marsh Gibbon, England, Prior to 1639, received a land grant of 500 acres at Lynn, Massachusetts, and was a founder of Southampton, Long Island, New York, in 1640.

From Edward and his wife Frances ---, the line of descent was through Richard and Elizabeth (Halsey) Howell; Stephen and Mary (Stout) Howell, and Martin Armstrong and Jane (White) Howell, the grandparents of John White Howell. His grandfather Howell was a ship-owner and railway official and his father was an inventor of note and manufacture.

Mr. Howell was educated at the College of the City of New York (1874–76), Rutgers College (1876–78) and Stevens Institute of Technology (1878–81). In his last year at Stevens he wrote a thesis on “Economy of Electric Lighting by Incandescence,” giving original and accurate data on the efficiency of dynamos and lamps, carrying capacity of conductors, drops in house wiring, and allied subjects. Published in booklet form under the title of “Incandescent Electric Lights,” in 1882, it was at once translated into several languages.

As a result of this paper, Mr. Howell entered the employ of Thomas A. Edison at the then recently established Edison Works at Menlo Park, New Jersey, in the engineering department in July 1881, being first engaged in the preparation of equipment for the photometric measurement and testing of incandescent lamps and developing methods and procedure for their manufacture on a commercial scale.

In 1890 Mr. Howell provided key technical evidence in one of the most important of Edison's many patent infringement trials; the trial of Edison Electric Light Co. vs. US Electric Lighting Co., sometimes referred to as "the great carbon filament suit" or "the great filament suit". The latter company was being sued by Edison for infringing on Edison's high resistance carbon filament patent. As part of their defense, lawyers for US Electric Lighting Co. contended that Edison's patent was invalid because they claimed the circa 1879 hand-made lamps described in the original 1880 patent could not be reproduced using materials and methods described in the patent. In response, two of Edison's lab technicians tried and failed in their attempts to hand-make the lamps for the court.