Hawkins Electrical Guide V. 06

Hawkins Electrical Guide Volume 6 is part of Nehemiah Hawkins’s ten-volume practical electrical engineering series, originally published in 1914. The sixth volume covers specialized applications including electric railways and traction systems, which were one of the major American electrical applications of the early twentieth century before the automobile eventually displaced the streetcar from most American cities.

American cities had built extensive electric streetcar networks across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the operation and maintenance of these systems required substantial numbers of trained electrical workers. Volume 6 provides practical guidance on traction motor work, overhead line systems, third rail installations, and the various other elements of the streetcar and electric railway technology of the period.

Nehemiah Hawkins (1845-1928) wrote the Electrical Guide series for the American electrical trade. The series captured the practical electrical engineering knowledge of the period in accessible form for working electricians.