George Westinghouse was a natural inventor and tinkerer whose work literally helped illuminate the world at the end of the 19th century.

From his youth working for his father to his invention of the air brake and his work on electrical power generation and transmission, Westinghouse was one of the figures who shaped the late 19th century. And one of the companies he formed, Westinghouse Electric, continued his innovations and was instrumental in developing commercial radio and television in the U.S.

Westinghouse’s father ran a machine shop in upstate New York, and Westinghouse spent much of his youth there tinkering on mechanical projects, including what would become the first of his 361 patents, a rotary steam engine. The Westinghouse engine, his father’s main product, was a portable steam engine that could be used to power a range of agricultural equipment, from sawmills to threshing machines.

In 1861, when he was 14, Westinghouse ran away from home and joined the Union Army. His parents found him and brought him back home, but the call of the Civil War was too great, and in 1863, with his parents’ permission, he enlisted in the Army.

He served just a few months before being honorably discharged and then enlisting in the Union Navy, and he would serve on different vessels until August 1865.

After the war, Westinghouse returned home and, after a brief stint at Union College in Schenectady, he turned to inventing full time. His next patents were for a device to get train cars back on the tracks after derailing and for a reversible rail frog, the device used to switch trains from one track to another.

That invention helped steer him toward Pittsburgh, because of the burgeoning steel industry there.

It was in Pittsburgh that Westinghouse would demonstrate the invention that would make him a household name — the air brake.

Before his invention, train crews had to manually apply the brakes, car by car.

The time it took to stop the trains led to multiple crashes where train engineers would see each other but be unable to stop in time.

And there were further dangers, as Stephen Skye wrote in “The Life of a Brakeman,” for the Neversink Valley of History and Innovation.

“To apply the brakes, the brakeman would turn a large brake control wheel located atop each freight car of the train,” Skye wrote. “Every brakeman carried a thick brake ‘club’ to help give them leverage in turning the wheel. This meant that they would have to run along the top of the railway cars and leap from one to another in order to apply or release the brakes on each car.

“Generally, the rear brakeman, or flagman as he was also known, would advance from the end of the train whilst the head brakeman or the conductor would advance from the engine to apply the brakes on each car, one by one. On a moving train, especially in bad weather, the application of brakes was a risky proposition, at best. Worse still, a stuck brake wheel might suddenly free up and throw the brakeman off balance. All too often this would result in the brakeman falling between the cars to his death. Riding in the open, frequently exposed to the bitter cold of winter, the brakeman’s job was fraught with danger.”

Westinghouse’s invention wouldn’t eliminate the work of the brakeman, at least not at first, but it would change things dramatically.

Westinghouse found that his work selling the reversible frogs had put him in touch with the right people to eventually adopt his air brake idea, even if they were skeptical of the concept at first.

"None of those approached appeared to have faith in the idea, though I afterward found that the acquaintances made and the many discussions I had had with railway people were of great advantage later in the introduction of the air brake on the railways with which they were connected,“ he said.

The first design, patented in 1869, used air pressure and vacuum to trigger the brakes on train cars. Flexible piping linked the cars together, so the engineer could trigger the brakes from the locomotive, and all of the brakes would set immediately.

There were problems with the first iteration, most notably the fact that if the air pressure dropped, the brakes couldn’t be activated.

After multiple refinements, the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, which Westinghouse had founded in 1869, released a system with valves at each car, so a malfunction with the air supply of one car wouldn’t affect others, and would actually turn on the brakes.

By 1889, 20 years after it was founded, Westinghouse moved the company from Pittsburgh to Wilmerding, about 14 miles east of the city.

By then, Westinghouse had also founded Union Switch and Signal, a company that focused on mechanizing the way railways signaled and directed trains onto different tracks, and perhaps his most famous company, Westinghouse Electric.

In 1886, Westinghouse founded Westinghouse Electric Company in 1886, the year after one of his employees developed the first practical transformer to use alternating current.

Westinghouse, along with others, believed that because it made long-distance transmission easier, alternating current, or AC, was better than direct current, or DC. Others, most famously Thomas Edison, believed DC was superior.

The clash between Edison and Westinghouse became known as the war of the currents and at its height featured literal life-and-death drama as the question of whether someone would be executed by electric chair played out on a national stage.

Edison had argued DC was safer and when New York in 1888 announced it would begin executing criminals by electrocution, he used the move to highlight what he said were the dangers of AC.

Edison even testified about how deadly 1,000 volts of AC would be, helping to ensure William Kemmler, a man convicted of murdering his wife, would be the first person to die in the electric chair. Edison and others suggested calling the method of execution “being Westinghoused,” further tying Westinghouse and AC to a perception of danger.

But despite public perception, AC was winning. It was less expensive to install and could transmit power over longer distances. By the early 1890s mergers had left just two major electric companies: General Electric and Westinghouse. Both were using AC.

Unlike many industrialists of the late 19th century, Westinghouse was regarded fondly by his workers. Part of that was how he treated them. In his “Life of George Westinghouse,” written in 1921, Henry G. Prout said he treated his workers fairly but went beyond on that.

“The attitude of Westinghouse toward the men in his employ was not that of ‘uplift,’” Prout wrote. “It was not the outcome of any theory of sociology or economics. It was not conscious and deliberate altruism. It was just man-to-man comradeship and good feeling — the most natural thing in the world. He respected the men and liked them because it was his nature to. He was kind to them because he was kind. He was just to them because he was just.

“They were not a different kind of men from bankers, lawyers, doctors, ministers, and engineers. They were men and he had lived amongst them in the friendliest relations since he was born. Such was the foundation of his simple policy toward labor and of his welfare schemes.”

By 1911, Westinghouse was no longer involved with any of the companies that bore his name. He died, age 67, in 1914.

He’s remembered as an inventor and businessman, but his most famous quotation left some insight into what he hoped his legacy would be.

“If someday they say of me that in my work I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of my fellow man, I shall be satisfied,” he said.