As an adjunct of the gas-driven automobile, it renders the starting of the engine independent of muscle and so makes possible the general use of the automobile by women as well as men.
The dynamo brought into service not only light and power but heat; and the electric furnace in turn gave rise to several great metallurgical and chemical industries.

Elihu Thomson's process of welding by means of the arc furnace found wide and varied applications.

The commercial production of aluminum is due to the electric furnace and dates from 1886.

It was in that year that H.Y.Castner of New York and C.M.

Hall of Pittsburgh both invented the methods of manufacture which gave to the world the new metal, malleable and ductile, exceedingly light, and capable of a thousand uses.