Abstract

The scientific institutionalization of electrical engineering took place in the 1880's; however, the science of electricity did not yet furnish proof of its practical efficiency. The founding of chairs in electrical engineering at this time was connected with the rise of heavy current industry, whereas weak current developments, as for instance telegraphy and telephony, played virtually no role. The principal connections of the discipline of electrical engineering shifted in the following years from physics to mechanical engineering, before electrical engineering became an independent discipline. The author gives an account of this development and presents theses for it, as well as shows a research program of the history of electrical engineering between 1880 and the First World War.