IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2016 - 107

book reviews

two important surveys
the American lineman & small-signal control

IN THIS ISSUE, WE HAVE TWO
books reviewed: The American Lineman: Honoring the Evolution and Importance of One of the Nation's Toughest, Most Admired Professions and
Small-Signal Stability, Control and
Dynamic Performance of Power Systems. The first offers a historical overview of a crucial, but often neglected,
player in power technology. The second is a new textbook for both students
and working engineers. According to
their reviewers, each in different ways
represents an important contribution to
the field.

The American Lineman:
Honoring the Evolution
and Importance of one
of the Nation's Toughest,
Most Admired Professions
By Alan Drew, 2015, ISBN: 978-1937498-84-9.
Rarely is a book both beautiful and
technical, but The American Lineman
by Alan Drew may be the most beautiful book ever produced on a technical
topic. Aesthetics aside, it is an intensely
serious work on the life, many contributions, and technological importance
of the lineman. Reliable communication and power are the foundation of
the modern world.
Much has been written about the invention and development of those technologies, but rare is the mention of the
lineman, the most vital link in that reliDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2016.2547302
Date of publication: 16 June 2016

july/august 2016

ability. I, too, share this guilt of omission;
my articles, books, presentations, and lectures provide no references to the lineman.
Fortunately, The American Lineman fills the
gap magnificently. It is
a well-researched work
on the evolution of the
lineman's work from the
earliest telegraph systems to the most modern
power grids, with a focus
on the methods, technological changes, safety
issues, and tools of the
trade over the years.
In his introduction,
Drew covers the work of the Northwest
Lineman College, his objectives for the
book, the evolution of the job, and his
sources of data. With brilliant, intense
imagery, the reader is taken on a ride
of adventure, challenge, tragedy, and
triumph. Climbing a pole using spikes
and a safety belt-with a leg wrapped
around the pole to maintain one's position-is daunting to imagine. Then,
the reader moves on through the construction and restoration of lines in
desert heat and frigid mountain passes,
isolated from family and the comforts
of home.
Even the most knowledgeable
reader can find some detail that will
astonish; for me, it was the proposed
Russia-United States telegraph line of
1860 that so bankrupted the Russian
treasury that the czar was persuaded to
sell Alaska to the United States in the
famous Seward purchase of 1867.

Presented in chronological order,
the book's chapters explore the pioneering eras of the telegraph, the telephone,
and, finally, power
distribution. All were
innovative, and the linemen invented as they
went: the tools, the making and mounting of
poles, and the methods
of mounting insulators
and stringing wire. All
this was accomplished
amid the varied challenges of open prairies,
isolated mountains, and
river crossings. Telegraph lines preceded the transcontinental
railroad, and linemen performed heroically to keep communications open during
the Civil War.
The telephone followed, building
on the telegraph lineman's experience
but requiring a greater degree of reliability. Major change came with the introduction of power distribution: high
voltage for arc lamps presented a major
safety issue, while the development of
power lines for motors required new
techniques to carry the current. Trolley
car systems presented new challenges
within the confines of urban streets.
Accidents claimed one out of three
linemen, resulting from electric shocks,
lightning, falls, and other mishaps.
Alternating current systems brought
high voltage, steel towers, heavy transformers, and more complex systems.
As these evolved, so did unions, codes,
professional associations, contractors'
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2016