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SCANNING OUR PAST
Electrical Engineering Hall of Fame
JOHN B. WHITEHEAD
I N 1941, the American Insti-
tute of Electrical Engineers
(AIEE) selected John B.
Whitehead (Fig. 1) as the
recipient of the Edison Medal. He was
cited Bfor his contributions to the field
of electrical engineering, his pioneer-ing and development in the field of
dielectric research, and his achieve-
ments in the advancement of engi-
neering education.[ After beginning
his professional career in the electrical
power industry, he spent more than
four decades as an educator and
administrator at The Johns HopkinsUniversity, Baltimore, MD. He au-
thored several books and was a con-
sultant on the electrification of steam
railroads and to the military during
both World Wars.
I . MENTORS ATJOHNS HOPKINS
John Boswell Whitehead was born on
August 18, 1872, in Norfolk, VA. He
attended the Norfolk Academy before
enrolling as an undergraduate at The
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
MD. He completed a program on
applied electricity offered by thedepartment of physics. His principal
mentors were Henry A. Rowland
(Fig. 2) and Louis Duncan (Fig. 3).
Rowland had taught at Johns Hopkins
since the school was established in
1876. He was well known for his work
in the development of magnetic cir-
cuit theory and his precise measure-ments of the magnetic properties of
materials including iron, nickel, and
cobalt. His early research had provid-
ed much of the foundation for the
rational design of electrical dynamos
and other electrical apparatus. Duncan
had graduated from the U.S. Naval
Academy in 1885. The following year,he joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins
as director of the applied electricity
option. He assigned his students to
perform experiments using electrical
In 1941 the AIEE awardedthe Edison Medal to
John B. Whitehead for hiscontributions in the fields ofelectrical engineering anddielectric research, and for
his achievements inengineering education.
Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/JPROC.2008.928767
Fig. 1. John B. Whitehead (Courtesy of
IEEE History Center).
Fig. 3. Louis Duncan (Courtesy of
IEEE History Center).
Fig. 2. Henry A. Rowland
(Courtesy of Smithsonian).
Vol. 96, No. 10, October 2008 | Proceedings of the IEEE 17330018-9219/$25.00 �2008 IEEE
machines donated to the university by
the Westinghouse Electric Company.In March 1890, Duncan presented a
technical paper at an AIEE meeting
discussing efficiency tests that he and
his students had conducted on a large
Westinghouse alternating-current (ac)
generator and several Westinghouse
transformers. He reported they had
found that the hysteresis loss intransformers varied very nearly as the
square of magnetic flux density.
Charles P. Steinmetz (Fig. 4), who
was in the audience, subsequently
developed a comprehensive theory of
hysteresis and eddy-current losses.
II . WESTINGHOUSECOMPANY
Soon after graduation from Johns
Hopkins in 1893, Whitehead joined
the engineering staff of the Westing-
house Company, Pittsburgh, PA. It
was an exciting time to be a young
engineer with Westinghouse, a com-pany that had emerged as an industry
leader in the field of ac power. An
impressive exhibit of its latest ac
motors and generators could be seen
at the Columbian Exhibition (Figs. 5
and 6) held in Chicago, IL, during
1893. In October 1893, Westinghouse
was awarded a large contract to
manufacture and install ten 5000 hp
ac generators in what was to be the
world’s largest power plant at Niagara
Falls, NY. The company’s engineers,
including Charles F. Scott, who had
graduated from Johns Hopkins in
1888, were actively investigating the
limits of high-voltage power transmis-
sion. It was in this context that
Whitehead developed what was to be
a lifelong interest in the properties of
high-voltage insulating materials. He
worked for the Niagara Falls Power
Company during 1896–1897 at a time
when it initiated power transmission
from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, NY,
using a high-voltage line.
III . EDUCATOR, AUTHOR,AND CONSULTANT
Whitehead returned to Johns Hopkinsin 1897, where he taught in theapplied electricity program whileworking on an advanced degree. Hereceived his doctorate in 1902 andremained on the faculty, where he be-came a Full Professor in 1910. Duringthe early twentieth century, he didlaboratory work for the National Bu-reau of Standards and for the CarnegieInstitution in Washington, DC. Heauthored a book entitled ElectricOperation of Steam Railroads publishedin 1909. He continued to do researchon high-voltage phenomena and
Fig. 4. Charles P. Steinmetz (Courtesy of
General Electric).
Fig. 5. Westinghouse backdrop at the Columbian Exhibition (Courtesy of IEEE History Center).
Fig. 6. Exterior of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition (Courtesy of IEEE History Center).
Scanning Our Past
1734 Proceedings of the IEEE | Vol. 96, No. 10, October 2008
presented an AIEE paper on the elec-tric strength of air in 1910. He was
elected a Fellow of the AIEE in 1912.
Whitehead received a commission
as a major in the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers in 1917 and also did
research for the Naval Consulting
Board on methods of detecting enemy
submarines. He was dean of theSchool of Electrical Engineering at
Johns Hopkins from 1919 to 1938. He
was the author of a book on the theory
of dielectrics and insulation publishedin 1927 and also a book on electricity
and magnetism published in 1939. He
was a Johns Hopkins Exchange Pro-
fessor in France during 1927 and
received the Elliot Cresson Medal
from the Franklin Institute in 1932.
He served a term as president of the
AIEE during 1933–1934. He waselected to the National Academy of
Sciences and was a member of the
National Research Council. He was
Director of the School of Engineering,Johns Hopkins, from 1938 to 1942.
Whitehead retired in 1942 but
continued to use laboratory facilities
at the university. During World War II,
he helped work on techniques to pro-
tect ships from magnetic mines and
also did research for the Army Air
Force. He died on November 16, 1954,in Baltimore at age 82. h
JAMES E. BRITTAIN
Scanning Our Past
Vol. 96, No. 10, October 2008 | Proceedings of the IEEE 1735