On September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station in New York City, New York, became the first commercial central electric power station in the United States. Nearly six decades later, the 1940 Census became the first to ask about home lighting sources, finding that 78.7 percent of all occupied housing units in the United States had electric lights. Today, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that nearly  every American household has access to electricity.

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Within months of demonstrating a practical incandescent lamp, Thomas Edison built small power stations and lighting systems at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, in 1879, and aboard the steamship Columbia in 1880. He demonstrated his electrical system at the International Exposition of Electricity in Paris in 1881. That same year, the Edison Electric Illuminating Company broke ground on the Pearl Street Station. Edison chose to build the nation's first commercial central power station in the heart of New York City's Financial District because of the proximity of a large number of potential customers and investors.

Edison designed and installed six 27-ton "Jumbo" steam-driven dynamos in the Pearl Street Station. The dynamos were capable of generating enough low-voltage direct-current electricity to power approximately 7,200 incandescent lamps connected by nearly 100,000 feet of underground copper wire within the station's one-square-mile service area.

Although the power station was not financially successful initially, it proved that Edison's design worked and drew investors. Additional power stations were soon built in New York City. Edison licensed installations in cities throughout the United States, including central power plants in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, in November 1882; in Brockton, Lawrence, and Fall River, Massachusetts; and in Newburgh, New York, in 1883. He licensed a number of central power plants internationally, including those in Milan, Italy; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Brussels, Belgium; and St. Petersburg, Russia, by the end of 1883.

A fire on January 2, 1890, nearly destroyed the Pearl Street Station. Workers quickly rebuilt the station and restored electric service in just 11 days. More efficient technology and plant designs expanded service areas and made the Pearl Street Station less profitable and increasingly obsolete. The Edison Electric Illuminating Company closed the station in 1895. The original station building was torn down, and the site was redeveloped. The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society and the New York Edison Company installed a plaque commemorating Pearl Street Station in 1917. One of Edison's 27-ton Jumbo dynamos remains operational and is on display at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.

You can learn more about Pearl Street Station, electrification, and power generation using Census Bureau data and records. For example:

• Beginning in 1882, Thomas Edison's Pearl Street Station generated electricity by burning coal to produce steam that powered engines connected to electrical generators. Between the 1880 and 1890 Censuses, U.S. coal production nearly doubled from approximately 71.5 million short tons to more than 141.2 million short tons. In 1890, Pennsylvania's mines led the nation, producing about 45.4 million short tons of anthracite coal and 36.2 million short tons of bituminous coal. Nationwide, coal mining employed 299,559 people.
• The Pearl Street Station housed six 27-ton Jumbo dynamos that were built by the Edison Machine Works in New York City. The number of electric light and power manufacturing establishments grew from three (located in New York, the District of Columbia, and St. Louis, Missouri) in 1880 to 144 nationwide in 1890. One of Edison's enormous dynamos is preserved at the Henry Ford. It was rebuilt in 1932 and remains operational within a partial replica of the museum's Edison Electric Illuminating Company's Station A in Detroit, Michigan.
• Electric City, Washington, was founded to house workers building the Grand Coulee Dam and its power-generating facilities. Tacoma, Washington; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Schenectady, New York; Great Falls, Montana; Kaukauna, Wisconsin; and Anderson, South Carolina, are nicknamed "Electric City" for their electric industries or early adoption of electrification. Other cities, towns, and neighborhoods have electrifying names, including Volta, California; Lightning Creek, North Dakota; Static, Tennessee; Current, Missouri; Zap, North Dakota; Ampere, New Jersey; and Energy, Illinois.
• Thomas Edison's contributions to electrification, lighting, telegraphy, sound recording, motion pictures, telephony, and other fields inspired communities, schools, landmarks, and ships to bear his name. Examples include towns named Edison in New Jersey, Washington, California, and Ohio; Edison Bridge in Fort Myers, Florida; Thomas Edison State University in Trenton, New Jersey; Edison High School in Portland, Oregon; Lake Thomas A. Edison in Fresno County, California; the Edison Hotel in New York City; Mount Edison northwest of Valdez, Alaska; the United States Navy destroyer USS Edison (DD-439) and ballistic missile submarine USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610); and asteroid 742 Edisona.
• After one month of operation, Edison's Pearl Street Station provided electricity to 59 customers who used it to light approximately 400 lamps. As demand for power grew, so too did the need for skilled electricians. Occupation data about electricians was not collected as a separate category in the 1880 and 1890 Censuses, but the Census Bureau later estimated that approximately 1,200 people worked as electricians in 1880 and about 15,000 in 1890. The 1900 Census was the first to count electricians as a separate occupation, reporting 50,717 in the United States. Their number more than doubled to 120,241 in 1910 and reached 212,964 in 1920. More recently, the Census Bureau's American Community Survey reported that 1,023,478 members of the civilian employed population age 16 and older worked as electricians. In May 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median annual pay for electricians was $62,350.
• Utilities like electricity, gas, water, and sewer service are significant monthly costs for American households. Among the nation's 132.7 million occupied housing units in 2024, nearly 126.5 million reported paying for electricity, including 30.6 million with electric bills totaling $250 or more per month. More than 67.6 million paid for gas to heat and cook. Among these households, nearly 14.6 million paid $25 to $49 per month. Of the more than 92.2 million households that paid for water and sewer service, nearly 26.3 million paid more than $1,000 annually.
• In 2025, the American Community Survey began collecting data about residential solar panels, asking the question, "Does this house, apartment, or mobile home use solar panels that generate electricity?" The 2025 survey also began asking whether anyone in the household owns or leases an electric vehicle, including all-electric and plug-in hybrids. The Census Bureau will publish the first 1-year estimates from these two questions in late 2026.
• In 2023, the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns series reported that there were 4,192 establishments in the Electric Power Generation industry (NAICS 22111) in the Utilities sector. These establishments generate electricity at hydroelectric, fossil fuel, nuclear, and solar power plants for transmission to distribution systems. During the pay period that included March 12, 2023, these establishments employed 134,570 people.
• Once electricity is generated, the nation's Electric Power Transmission, Control, and Distribution industry (NAICS 22112) regulates, transmits, and delivers it to distribution centers or final consumers. In 2023, the 8,543 establishments in this Utilities sector industry employed 385,141 people during the pay period that included March 12.

On September 7, 1989, President George H.W. Bush nominated Barbara Everitt Bryant as the U.S. Census Bureau's first female director.

Bryant earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Cornell University. After her three children started school, she attended Michigan State University and received a master's degree in journalism in 1967 and a doctorate in communications three years later. While working at Market Opinion Research, headquartered in Detroit she directed national research for three presidential commissions: President Gerald Ford’s Commission on Observance of International Women’s Year (1975–77), President Jimmy Carter’s Commission on World Hunger (1980), and President Ronald Reagan’s Commission on Americans Outdoors (1986). She also managed survey studies and consulting projects for media, transportation, education, and health care organizations.

Bryant became Census Bureau director after most of the planning for the 1990 Census had been completed, but led the actual enumeration and the agency's response to accusations of an undercount. She also championed the agency's move toward computer-assisted enumeration.

Bryant left the Census Bureau in 1993. She took a position at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she was both a research scientist and director of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. She was active in the American Marketing Association, serving on its board and foundation board, and the American Association of Public Opinion Research. She also was a board member of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research and a fellow of the American Statistical Association.

On January 19, 1993, Bryant participated in an oral history interview shortly after stepping down as Census Bureau director.