text:
Jack London

John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London,  was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal welfare, workers' rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Family
Jack London was born January 12, 1876. His mother, Flora Wellman, was the fifth and youngest child of Pennsylvania Canal builder Marshall Wellman and his first wife, Eleanor Garrett Jones. Marshall Wellman was descended from Thomas Wellman, an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Flora left Ohio and moved to the Pacific coast when her father remarried after her mother died. In San Francisco, Flora worked as a music teacher and spiritualist, claiming to channel the spirit of a Sauk chief, Black Hawk.

Biographer Clarice Stasz and others believe London's father was astrologer William Chaney. Flora Wellman was living with Chaney in San Francisco when she became pregnant. Whether Wellman and Chaney were legally married is unknown. Stasz notes that in his memoirs, Chaney refers to London's mother Flora Wellman as having been "his wife"; he also cites an advertisement in which Flora called herself "Florence Wellman Chaney".

According to Flora Wellman's account, as recorded in the San Francisco Chronicle of June 4, 1875, Chaney demanded that she have an abortion. When she refused, he disclaimed responsibility for the child. In desperation, she shot herself. She was not seriously wounded, but she was temporarily deranged. After giving birth, Flora sent the baby for wet-nursing to Virginia (Jennie) Prentiss, a formerly enslaved African-American woman and a neighbor. Prentiss was an important maternal figure throughout London's life, and he would later refer to her as his primary source of love and affection as a child.

Late in 1876, Flora Wellman married John London, a partially disabled Civil War veteran, and brought her baby John, later known as Jack, to live with the newly married couple. The family moved around the San Francisco Bay Area before settling in Oakland, where London completed public grade school. The Prentiss family moved with the Londons, and remained a stable source of care for the young Jack.

In 1897, when he was 21 and a student at the University of California, Berkeley, London searched for and read the newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney responded that he could not be London's father because he was impotent; he casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men and averred that she had slandered him when she said he insisted on an abortion. Chaney concluded by saying that he was more to be pitied than London. London was devastated by his father's letter; in the months following, he quit school at Berkeley and went to the Klondike during the gold rush boom.

Early life

London was born near Third and Brannan Streets in San Francisco. The house burned down in the fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake; the California Historical Society placed a plaque at the site in 1953. Although the family was working class, it was not as impoverished as London's later accounts claimed. London was largely self-educated. In 1885, London found and read Ouida's long Victorian novel Signa. He credited this as the seed of his literary success. In 1886, he went to the Oakland Public Library and found a sympathetic librarian, Ina Coolbrith, who encouraged his learning. (She later became California's first poet laureate and an important figure in the San Francisco literary community).

In 1889, London began working 12 to 18 hours a day at Hickmott's Cannery. Seeking a way out, he borrowed money from his foster mother Virginia Prentiss, bought the sloop Razzle-Dazzle from an oyster pirate named French Frank, and became an oyster pirate himself. In his memoir, John Barleycorn, he claims also to have stolen French Frank's mistress Mamie. After a few months, his sloop became damaged beyond repair. London hired on as a member of the California Fish Patrol.

In 1893, he signed on to the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherland, bound for the coast of Japan. When he returned, the country was in the grip of the panic of '93 and Oakland was swept by labor unrest. After grueling jobs in a jute mill and a street-railway power plant, London joined Coxey's Army and began his career as a tramp. In 1894, he spent 30 days for vagrancy in the Erie County Penitentiary at Buffalo, New York. In The Road, he wrote:

"Man-handling was merely one of the very minor unprintable horrors of the Erie County Pen. I say 'unprintable'; and in justice I must also say undescribable. They were unthinkable to me until I saw them, and I was no spring chicken in the ways of the world and the awful abysses of human degradation. It would take a deep plummet to reach bottom in the Erie County Pen, and I do but skim lightly and facetiously the surface of things as I there saw them."

After many experiences as a hobo and a sailor, he returned to Oakland and attended Oakland High School. He contributed a number of articles to the high school's magazine, The Aegis. His first published work was "Typhoon off the Coast of Japan", an account of his sailing experiences.

As a schoolboy, London often studied at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon, a port-side bar in Oakland. At 17, he confessed to the bar's owner, John Heinold, his desire to attend university and pursue a career as a writer. Heinold lent London tuition money to attend college.

London desperately wanted to attend the University of California, located in Berkeley. In 1896, after a summer of intense studying to pass certification exams, he was admitted. Financial circumstances forced him to leave in 1897, and he never graduated. No evidence has surfaced that he ever wrote for student publications while studying at Berkeley.

While at Berkeley, London continued to study and spend time at Heinold's saloon, where he was introduced to the sailors and adventurers who would influence his writing. In his autobiographical novel, John Barleycorn, London mentioned the pub's likeness seventeen times. Heinold's was the place where London met Alexander McLean, a captain known for his cruelty at sea. London based his protagonist Wolf Larsen, in the novel The Sea-Wolf, on McLean.

Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon is now unofficially named Jack London's Rendezvous in his honor.

Gold rush and first success

On July 12, 1897, London (age 21) and his sister's husband Captain Shepard sailed to join the Klondike Gold Rush. This was the setting for some of his first successful stories. London's time in the harsh Klondike, however, was detrimental to his health. Like so many other men who were malnourished in the goldfields, London developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his hip and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with marks that always reminded him of the struggles he faced in the Klondike. Father William Judge, "The Saint of Dawson", had a facility in Dawson that provided shelter, food and any available medicine to London and others. His struggles there inspired London's short story, "To Build a Fire" (1902, revised in 1908), which many critics assess as his best.

His landlords in Dawson were mining engineers Marshall Latham Bond and Louis Whitford Bond, educated at the Bachelor's level at the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale and at the Master's level at Stanford, respectively. The brothers' father, Judge Hiram Bond, was a wealthy mining investor. While the Bond brothers were at Stanford, Hiram at the suggestion of his brother bought the New Park Estate at Santa Clara as well as a local bank. The Bonds, especially Hiram, were active Republicans. Marshall Bond's diary mentions friendly sparring with London on political issues as a camp pastime.

London left Oakland with a social conscience and socialist leanings; he returned to become an activist for socialism. He concluded that his only hope of escaping the work "trap" was to get an education and "sell his brains". He saw his writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty and, he hoped, as a means of beating the wealthy at their own game.

On returning to California in 1898, London began working to get published, a struggle described in his novel Martin Eden (serialized in 1908, published in 1909). His first published story since high school was "To the Man On Trail", which has frequently been collected in anthologies. When The Overland Monthly offered him only five dollars for it—and was slow paying—London came close to abandoning his writing career. In his words, "literally and literarily I was saved" when The Black Cat accepted his story "A Thousand Deaths" and paid him $40—the "first money I ever received for a story".

London began his writing career just as new printing technologies enabled lower-cost production of magazines. This resulted in a boom in popular magazines aimed at a wide public audience and a strong market for short fiction. In 1900, he made $2,500 in writing, about $0 in today's currency. Among the works he sold to magazines was a short story known as either "Diable" (1902) or "Bâtard" (1904), two editions of the same basic story. London received $141.25 for this story on May 27, 1902. In the text, a cruel French Canadian brutalizes his dog, and the dog retaliates and kills the man. London told some of his critics that man's actions are the main cause of the behavior of their animals, and he would show this famously in another story, The Call of the Wild.

In early 1903, London sold The Call of the Wild to The Saturday Evening Post for $750 and the book rights to Macmillan. Macmillan's promotional campaign propelled it to swift success.

While living at his rented villa on Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, London met poet George Sterling; in time they became best friends. In 1902, Sterling helped London find a home closer to his own in nearby Piedmont. In his letters London addressed Sterling as "Greek", owing to Sterling's aquiline nose and classical profile, and he signed them as "Wolf". London was later to depict Sterling as Russ Brissenden in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden (1910) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon (1913).

In later life London indulged his wide-ranging interests by accumulating a personal library of 15,000 volumes. He referred to his books as "the tools of my trade".

The Crowd (literary group)
The Crowd gathered at the restaurants (including Coppa's ) at the old Montgomery Block and later was a: "Bohemian group that often spent its Sunday afternoons picnicking, reading each other's latest compositions, gossiping about each other's infidelities and frolicking beneath the cherry boughs in the hills of Piedmont"

- Alex Kershaw, historian

Formed after 1898, they met at Xavier Martinez's home on Sundays, and at Jack London's home on Wednesdays. The group usually included George Sterling (poet) and his wife Caroline "Carrie" E. (née Rand) Sterling, Anna Strunsky, Herman Whitaker, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Partington and his wife Blanche, Joseph Noel (dramatist, novelist and journalist), Joaquin Miller, Arnold Genthe and the hosts, Jack London and his wife, Bessie Maddern London, and Xavier Martinez and his wife, Elsie Whitaker Martinez.

First marriage (1900–1904)

London married Elizabeth Mae (or May) "Bessie" Maddern on April 7, 1900, the same day The Son of the Wolf was published. Bess had been part of his circle of friends for a number of years. She was related to stage actresses Minnie Maddern Fiske and Emily Stevens. Stasz says, "Both acknowledged publicly that they were not marrying out of love, but from friendship and a belief that they would produce sturdy children." Kingman says, "they were comfortable together... Jack had made it clear to Bessie that he did not love her, but that he liked her enough to make a successful marriage."

London met Bessie through his friend at Oakland High School, Fred Jacobs; she was Fred's fiancée. Bessie, who tutored at Anderson's University Academy in Alameda California, tutored Jack in preparation for his entrance exams for the University of California at Berkeley in 1896. Jacobs was killed aboard the Scandia in 1897, but Jack and Bessie continued their friendship, which included taking photos and developing the film together. This was the beginning of Jack's passion for photography.

During the marriage, London continued his friendship with Anna Strunsky, co-authoring The Kempton-Wace Letters, an epistolary novel contrasting two philosophies of love. Anna, writing "Dane Kempton's" letters, arguing for a romantic view of marriage, while London, writing "Herbert Wace's" letters, argued for a scientific view, based on Darwinism and eugenics. In the novel, his fictional character contrasted two women he had known.

London's pet name for Bess was "Mother-Girl" and Bess's for London was "Daddy-Boy". Their first child, Joan, was born on January 15, 1901, and their second, Bessie "Becky" (also reported as Bess), on October 20, 1902. Both children were born in Piedmont, California. Here London wrote one of his most celebrated works, The Call of the Wild.

While London had pride in his children, the marriage was strained. Kingman says that by 1903 the couple were close to separation as they were "extremely incompatible". "Jack was still so kind and gentle with Bessie that when Cloudsley Johns was a house guest in February 1903 he didn't suspect a breakup of their marriage."

London reportedly complained to friends Joseph Noel and George Sterling:

"[Bessie] is devoted to purity. When I tell her morality is only evidence of low blood pressure, she hates me. She'd sell me and the children out for her damned purity. It's terrible. Every time I come back after being away from home for a night she won't let me be in the same room with her if she can help it."

Stasz writes that these were "code words for [Bess's] fear that [Jack] was consorting with prostitutes and might bring home venereal disease."

On July 24, 1903, London told Bessie he was leaving and moved out. During 1904, London and Bess negotiated the terms of a divorce, and the decree was granted on November 11, 1904.

War correspondent (1904)
London accepted an assignment of the San Francisco Examiner to cover the Russo-Japanese War in early 1904, arriving in Yokohama on January 25, 1904. He was arrested by Japanese authorities in Shimonoseki, but released through the intervention of American ambassador Lloyd Griscom. After travelling to Korea, he was again arrested by Japanese authorities for straying too close to the border with Manchuria without official permission, and was sent back to Seoul. Released again, London was permitted to travel with the Imperial Japanese Army to the border, and to observe the Battle of the Yalu.

London asked William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the San Francisco Examiner, to be allowed to transfer to the Imperial Russian Army, where he felt that restrictions on his reporting and his movements would be less severe. However, before this could be arranged, he was arrested for a third time in four months, this time for assaulting his Japanese assistants, whom he accused of stealing the fodder for his horse. Released through the personal intervention of President Theodore Roosevelt, London departed the front in June 1904.

Bohemian Club

On August 18, 1904, London went with his close friend, the poet George Sterling, to "Summer High Jinks" at the Bohemian Grove. London was elected to honorary membership in the Bohemian Club and took part in many activities. Other noted members of the Bohemian Club during this time included Ambrose Bierce, Gelett Burgess, Allan Dunn, John Muir, Frank Norris, and Herman George Scheffauer.

Beginning in December 1914, London worked on The Acorn Planter, A California Forest Play, to be performed as one of the annual Grove Plays, but it was never selected. It was described as too difficult to set to music. London published The Acorn Planter in 1916.

Second marriage

After divorcing Maddern, London married Charmian Kittredge in 1905. London had been introduced to Kittredge in 1900 by her aunt Netta Eames, who was an editor at Overland Monthly magazine in San Francisco. The two met prior to his first marriage but became lovers years later after Jack and Bessie London visited Wake Robin, Netta Eames' Sonoma County resort, in 1903. London was injured when he fell from a buggy, and Netta arranged for Charmian to care for him. The two developed a friendship, as Charmian, Netta, her husband Roscoe, and London were politically aligned with socialist causes. At some point the relationship became romantic, and Jack divorced his wife to marry Charmian, who was five years his senior.

Biographer Russ Kingman called Charmian "Jack's soul-mate, always at his side, and a perfect match." Their time together included numerous trips, including a 1907 cruise on the yacht Snark to Hawaii and Australia. Many of London's stories are based on his visits to Hawaii, the last one for 10 months beginning in December 1915.

The couple also visited Goldfield, Nevada, in 1907, where they were guests of the Bond brothers, London's Dawson City landlords. The Bond brothers were working in Nevada as mining engineers.

London had contrasted the concepts of the "Mother Girl" and the "Mate Woman" in The Kempton-Wace Letters. His pet name for Bess had been "Mother-Girl;" his pet name for Charmian was "Mate-Woman." Charmian's aunt and foster mother, a disciple of Victoria Woodhull, had raised her without prudishness. Every biographer alludes to Charmian's uninhibited sexuality.

Joseph Noel calls the events from 1903 to 1905 "a domestic drama that would have intrigued the pen of an Ibsen.... London's had comedy relief in it and a sort of easy-going romance." In broad outline, London was restless in his first marriage, sought extramarital sexual affairs, and found, in Charmian Kittredge, not only a sexually active and adventurous partner, but his future life-companion. They attempted to have children; one child died at birth, and another pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.

In 1906, London published in Collier's magazine his eye-witness report of the San Francisco earthquake.

Beauty Ranch (1905–1916)
In 1905, London purchased a 1000 acre ranch in Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, on the eastern slope of Sonoma Mountain. He wrote: "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate."

Stasz writes that London "had taken fully to heart the vision, expressed in his agrarian fiction, of the land as the closest earthly version of Eden ... he educated himself through the study of agricultural manuals and scientific tomes. He conceived of a system of ranching that today would be praised for its ecological wisdom." He was proud to own the first concrete silo in California. He hoped to adapt the wisdom of Asian sustainable agriculture to the United States. He hired both Italian and Chinese stonemasons, whose distinctly different styles are obvious.

The ranch was an economic failure. Sympathetic observers such as Stasz treat his projects as potentially feasible, and ascribe their failure to bad luck or to being ahead of their time. Unsympathetic historians such as Kevin Starr suggest that he was a bad manager, distracted by other concerns and impaired by his alcoholism. Starr notes that London was absent from his ranch about six months a year between 1910 and 1916 and says, "He liked the show of managerial power, but not grinding attention to detail .... London's workers laughed at his efforts to play big-time rancher [and considered] the operation a rich man's hobby."

London spent $80,000 ($0 in current value) to build a 15000 sqft stone mansion called Wolf House on the property. Just as the mansion was nearing completion, two weeks before the Londons planned to move in, it was destroyed by fire.

London's last visit to Hawaii, beginning in December 1915, lasted eight months. He met with Duke Kahanamoku, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole, Queen Lili'uokalani and many others, before returning to his ranch in July 1916. He was suffering from kidney failure, but he continued to work.

The ranch (abutting stone remnants of Wolf House) is now a National Historic Landmark and is protected in Jack London State Historic Park.

Animal activism
London witnessed animal cruelty in the training of circus animals, and his subsequent novels Jerry of the Islands and Michael, Brother of Jerry included a foreword entreating the public to become more informed about this practice. In 1918, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the American Humane Education Society teamed up to create the Jack London Club, which sought to inform the public about cruelty to circus animals and encourage them to protest this establishment. Support from Club members led to a temporary cessation of trained animal acts at Ringling-Barnum and Bailey in 1925.

Death

London died November 22, 1916, in a sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch. London had been a robust man but had suffered several serious illnesses, including scurvy in the Klondike. Additionally, during travels on the Snark, he and Charmian picked up unspecified tropical infections and diseases, including yaws. At the time of his death, he suffered from dysentery, late-stage alcoholism, and uremia; he was in extreme pain and taking morphine and opium, both common over-the-counter drugs at the time.

London's ashes were buried on his property not far from the Wolf House. London's funeral took place on November 26, 1916, attended only by close friends, relatives, and workers of the property. In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated and buried next to some pioneer children, under a rock that belonged to the Wolf House. After Charmian's death in 1955, she was also cremated and then buried with her husband in the same spot that her husband chose. The grave is marked by a mossy boulder. The buildings and property were later preserved as Jack London State Historic Park, in Glen Ellen, California.

Suicide debate
Because he was using morphine, many older sources describe London's death as a suicide, and some still do. This conjecture appears to be a rumor, or speculation based on incidents in his fiction writings. His death certificate gives the cause as uremia, following acute renal colic.

The biographer Clarice Stasz writes, "Following London's death, for a number of reasons, a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature." Most biographers, including Russ Kingman, now agree he died of uremia aggravated by an accidental morphine overdose.

London's fiction featured several suicides. In his autobiographical memoir John Barleycorn, he claims, as a youth, to have drunkenly stumbled overboard into the San Francisco Bay, "some maundering fancy of going out with the tide suddenly obsessed me". He said he drifted and nearly succeeded in drowning before sobering up and being rescued by fishermen. In the dénouement of The Little Lady of the Big House, the heroine, confronted by the pain of a mortal gunshot wound, undergoes a physician-assisted suicide by morphine. Also, in Martin Eden, the principal protagonist, who shares certain characteristics with London, drowns himself.

Plagiarism accusations

London was vulnerable to accusations of plagiarism, both because he was such a conspicuous, prolific, and successful writer and because of his methods of working. He wrote in a letter to Elwyn Hoffman, "expression, you see—with me—is far easier than invention." He purchased plots and novels from the young Sinclair Lewis and used incidents from newspaper clippings as writing material.

In July 1901, two pieces of fiction appeared within the same month: London's "Moon-Face", in the San Francisco Argonaut, and Frank Norris' "The Passing of Cock-eye Blacklock", in Century Magazine. Newspapers showed the similarities between the stories, which London said were "quite different in manner of treatment, [but] patently the same in foundation and motive." London explained both writers based their stories on the same newspaper account. A year later, it was discovered that Charles Forrest McLean had published a fictional story also based on the same incident.

Egerton Ryerson Young claimed The Call of the Wild (1903) was taken from Young's book My Dogs in the Northland (1902). London acknowledged using it as a source and claimed to have written a letter to Young thanking him.

In 1906, the New York World published "deadly parallel" columns showing eighteen passages from London's short story "Love of Life" side by side with similar passages from a nonfiction article by Augustus Biddle and J. K. Macdonald, titled "Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun". London noted the World did not accuse him of "plagiarism", but only of "identity of time and situation", to which he defiantly "pled guilty".

The most serious charge of plagiarism was based on London's "The Bishop's Vision", Chapter 7 of his novel The Iron Heel (1908). The chapter is nearly identical to an ironic essay that Frank Harris published in 1901, titled "The Bishop of London and Public Morality". Harris was incensed and suggested he should receive 1/60th of the royalties from The Iron Heel, the disputed material constituting about that fraction of the whole novel. London insisted he had clipped a reprint of the article, which had appeared in an American newspaper, and believed it to be a genuine speech delivered by the Bishop of London.

Atheism
London was an atheist. He is quoted as saying, "I believe that when I am dead, I am dead. I believe that with my death I am just as much obliterated as the last mosquito you and I squashed."

Political views
London wrote from a socialist viewpoint, which is evident in his novel The Iron Heel. Neither a theorist nor an intellectual socialist, London's socialism grew out of his life experience. As London explained in his essay "How I Became a Socialist", his views were influenced by his experience with people at the bottom of the social pit. His optimism and individualism faded, and he vowed never to do more hard physical work than necessary. He wrote that his individualism was hammered out of him, and he was politically reborn. He often closed his letters "Yours for the Revolution".

London joined the Socialist Labor Party in April 1896. In the same year, the San Francisco Chronicle published a story about the twenty-year-old London's giving nightly speeches in Oakland's City Hall Park, an activity he was arrested for a year later. In 1901, he left the Socialist Labor Party and joined the new Socialist Party of America. He ran unsuccessfully as the high-profile Socialist candidate for mayor of Oakland in 1901 (receiving 245 votes) and 1905 (improving to 981 votes), toured the country lecturing on socialism in 1906, and published two collections of essays about socialism: War of the Classes (1905) and Revolution, and other Essays (1906).

Stasz notes: "London regarded the Wobblies as a welcome addition to the Socialist cause, although he never joined them in going so far as to recommend sabotage." Stasz mentions a personal meeting between London and Big Bill Haywood in 1912. In his 1913 book The Cruise of the Snark, London writes about appeals to him for membership of the Snark's crew from office workers and other "toilers" who longed for escape from the cities, and of being cheated by workmen.

In his Glen Ellen ranch years, London felt some ambivalence toward socialism and complained about the "inefficient Italian labourers" in his employ. In 1916, he resigned from the Glen Ellen chapter of the Socialist Party. In an unflattering portrait of London's ranch days, California cultural historian Kevin Starr refers to this period as "post-socialist" and says that "[...] by 1911 [...] London was more bored by the class struggle than he cared to admit."

George Orwell, however, identified a fascist strain in London's outlook:"But temperamentally he was very different from the majority of Marxists. With his love of violence and physical strength, his belief in 'natural aristocracy', his animal-worship and exaltation of the primitive, he had in him what one might fairly call a Fascist strain."

Race
London shared common concerns among many European Americans in California about Asian immigration, described as "the yellow peril"; he used the latter term as the title of a 1904 essay. This theme was also the subject of a story he wrote in 1910 called "The Unparalleled Invasion". Presented as an historical essay set in the future, the story narrates events between 1976 and 1987, in which China, with an ever-increasing population, is taking over and colonizing its neighbors with the intention of taking over the entire Earth. The western nations respond with biological warfare and bombard China with dozens of the most infectious diseases. On his fears about China, he admits (at the end of "The Yellow Peril"), "it must be taken into consideration that the above postulate is itself a product of Western race-egotism, urged by our belief in our own righteousness and fostered by a faith in ourselves which may be as erroneous as are most fond race fancies."

By contrast, many of London's short stories are notable for their empathetic portrayal of Mexican ("The Mexican"), Asian ("The Chinago"), and Hawaiian ("Koolau the Leper") characters. London's war correspondence from the Russo-Japanese War, as well as his unfinished novel Cherry, show he admired much about Japanese customs and capabilities. London's writings have been popular among the Japanese, who believe he portrayed them positively.

In "Koolau the Leper", London describes Koolau, who is a Hawaiian leper—and thus a very different sort of "superman" than Martin Eden—and who fights off an entire cavalry troop to elude capture, as "indomitable spiritually—a ... magnificent rebel". This character is based on Hawaiian leper Kaluaikoolau, who in 1893 revolted and resisted capture from forces of the Provisional Government of Hawaii in the Kalalau Valley.

Those who defend London against charges of racism cite the letter he wrote to the Japanese-American Commercial Weekly in 1913:

"In reply to yours of August 16, 1913. First of all, I should say by stopping the stupid newspaper from always fomenting race prejudice. This of course, being impossible, I would say, next, by educating the people of Japan so that they will be too intelligently tolerant to respond to any call to race prejudice. And, finally, by realizing, in industry and government, of socialism—which last word is merely a word that stands for the actual application of in the affairs of men of the theory of the Brotherhood of Man.

In the meantime the nations and races are only unruly boys who have not yet grown to the stature of men. So we must expect them to do unruly and boisterous things at times. And, just as boys grow up, so the races of mankind will grow up and laugh when they look back upon their childish quarrels."

In 1996, after the City of Whitehorse, Yukon, renamed a street in honor of London, protests over London's alleged racism forced the city to change the name of "Jack London Boulevard" back to "Two-mile Hill".

Shortly after boxer Jack Johnson was crowned the first black world heavyweight champ in 1908, London pleaded for a "great white hope" to come forward to defeat Johnson, writing: "Jim Jeffries must now emerge from his Alfalfa farm and remove that golden smile from Jack Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you. The White Man must be rescued."

Eugenics
With other modernist writers of the day, London supported eugenics. The notion of "good breeding" complemented the Progressive era scientism, the belief that humans assort along a hierarchy by race, religion, and ethnicity. The Progressive Era catalog of inferiority offered basis for threats to American Anglo-Saxon racial integrity. London wrote to Frederick H. Robinson of the periodical Medical Review of Reviews, stating, "I believe the future belongs to eugenics, and will be determined by the practice of eugenics." Although this led some to argue for forced sterilization of criminals or those deemed feeble-minded, London did not express this extreme. His short story "Told in the Drooling Ward" is from the viewpoint of a surprisingly astute "feebled-minded" person.

Hensley argues that London's novel Before Adam (1906–07) reveals pro-eugenic themes. London advised his collaborator Anna Strunsky during preparation of The Kempton-Wace Letters that he would take the role of eugenics in mating, while she would argue on behalf of romantic love. (Love won the argument.) The Valley of the Moon emphasizes the theme of "real Americans," the Anglo Saxon, yet in Little Lady of the Big House, London is more nuanced. The protagonist's argument is not that all white men are superior, but that there are more superior ones among whites than in other races. By encouraging the best in any race to mate will improve its population qualities. Living in Hawaii challenged his orthodoxy. In "My Hawaiian Aloha," London noted the liberal intermarrying of races, concluding how "little Hawaii, with its hotch potch races, is making a better demonstration than the United States."

Short stories
Western writer and historian Dale L. Walker writes:

"London's true métier was the short story ... London's true genius lay in the short form, 7,500 words and under, where the flood of images in his teeming brain and the innate power of his narrative gift were at once constrained and freed. His stories that run longer than the magic 7,500 generally—but certainly not always—could have benefited from self-editing."

London's "strength of utterance" is at its height in his stories, and they are painstakingly well-constructed. "To Build a Fire" is the best known of all his stories. Set in the harsh Klondike, it recounts the haphazard trek of a new arrival who has ignored an old-timer's warning about the risks of traveling alone. Falling through the ice into a creek in seventy-five-below weather, the unnamed man is keenly aware that survival depends on his untested skills at quickly building a fire to dry his clothes and warm his extremities. After publishing a tame version of this story—with a sunny outcome—in The Youth's Companion in 1902, London offered a second, more severe take on the man's predicament in The Century Magazine in 1908. Reading both provides an illustration of London's growth and maturation as a writer. As Labor (1994) observes: "To compare the two versions is itself an instructive lesson in what distinguished a great work of literary art from a good children's story."

Other stories from the Klondike period include: "All Gold Canyon", about a battle between a gold prospector and a claim jumper; "The Law of Life", about an aging American Indian man abandoned by his tribe and left to die; "Love of Life", about a trek by a prospector across the Canadian tundra; "To the Man on Trail," which tells the story of a prospector fleeing the Mounted Police in a sled race, and raises the question of the contrast between written law and morality; and "An Odyssey of the North," which raises questions of conditional morality, and paints a sympathetic portrait of a man of mixed White and Aleut ancestry.

London was a boxing fan and an avid amateur boxer. "A Piece of Steak" is a tale about a match between older and younger boxers. It contrasts the differing experiences of youth and age but also raises the social question of the treatment of aging workers. "The Mexican" combines boxing with a social theme, as a young Mexican endures an unfair fight and ethnic prejudice to earn money with which to aid the revolution.

Several of London's stories would today be classified as science fiction. "The Unparalleled Invasion" describes germ warfare against China; "Goliath" is about an irresistible energy weapon; "The Shadow and the Flash" is a tale about two brothers who take different routes to achieving invisibility; "A Relic of the Pliocene" is a tall tale about an encounter of a modern-day man with a mammoth. "The Red One" is a late story from a period when London was intrigued by the theories of the psychiatrist and writer Jung. It tells of an island tribe held in thrall by an extraterrestrial object.

Some nineteen original collections of short stories were published during London's brief life or shortly after his death. There have been several posthumous anthologies drawn from this pool of stories. Many of these stories were located in the Klondike and the Pacific. A collection of Jack London's San Francisco Stories was published in October 2010 by Sydney Samizdat Press.

Novels

London's most famous novels are The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea-Wolf, The Iron Heel, and Martin Eden.

In a letter dated December 27, 1901, London's Macmillan publisher George Platt Brett, Sr., said "he believed Jack's fiction represented 'the very best kind of work' done in America."

Critic Maxwell Geismar called The Call of the Wild "a beautiful prose poem"; editor Franklin Walker said that it "belongs on a shelf with Walden and Huckleberry Finn"; and novelist E.L. Doctorow called it "a mordant parable ... his masterpiece."

The historian Dale L. Walker commented:

"Jack London was an uncomfortable novelist, that form too long for his natural impatience and the quickness of his mind. His novels, even the best of them, are hugely flawed."

Some critics have said that his novels are episodic and resemble linked short stories. Dale L. Walker writes:

"The Star Rover, that magnificent experiment, is actually a series of short stories connected by a unifying device ... Smoke Bellew is a series of stories bound together in a novel-like form by their reappearing protagonist, Kit Bellew; and John Barleycorn ... is a synoptic series of short episodes."

Ambrose Bierce said of The Sea-Wolf that "the great thing—and it is among the greatest of things—is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen ... the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime." However, he noted, "The love element, with its absurd suppressions, and impossible proprieties, is awful."

The Iron Heel is an example of a dystopian novel that anticipates and influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. London's socialist politics are explicitly on display here. The Iron Heel meets the contemporary definition of soft science fiction. The Star Rover (1915) is also science fiction.

Credo is likely by London despite doubts
London's literary executor, Irving Shepard, quoted a Jack London Credo in an introduction to a 1956 collection of London stories:

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

The biographer Stasz notes that the passage "has many marks of London's style" but the only line that could be safely attributed to London was the first. The words Shepard quoted were from a story in the San Francisco Bulletin, December 2, 1916, by journalist Ernest J. Hopkins, who visited the ranch just weeks before London's death. Stasz notes, "Even more so than today journalists' quotes were unreliable or even sheer inventions," and says no direct source in London's writings has been found. However, at least one line, according to Stasz, is authentic, being referenced by London and written in his own hand in the autograph book of Australian suffragette Vida Goldstein:

Dear Miss Goldstein:– Seven years ago I wrote you that I'd rather be ashes than dust. I still subscribe to that sentiment. Sincerely yours, Jack London Jan. 13, 1909

In his short story "By The Turtles of Tasman", a character, defending her "ne'er-do-well grasshopperish father" to her "antlike uncle", says: "... my father has been a king. He has lived .... Have you lived merely to live? Are you afraid to die? I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet. When you are dust, my father will be ashes."

The last three sentences of the credo have been deemed to be an authentic quotation of Jack London by The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations. Likewise, National Public Radio has ascribed the quotation to Jack London, and explained that it was published via a journalist; NPR did not question the accuracy of that reporter who first published the credo in 1916.

Part of the credo was used to describe the philosophy of the fictional character James Bond, in the Ian Fleming novel You Only Live Twice (1964), and again in the movie No Time to Die (2021). According to a 2021 article about that Bond movie in The Independent, "The quote was originally...by the American writer Jack London...."

Diatribe about scabs has unknown author
A short diatribe on "The Scab" is often quoted within the U.S. labor movement and frequently attributed to London. It opens:

"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and Angels weep in Heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out...."

In 1913 and 1914, a number of newspapers printed the first three sentences with varying terms used instead of "scab", such as "knocker", "stool pigeon" or "scandal monger". Those newspapers did not attribute those sentences to London.

This passage as given above was the subject of a 1974 Supreme Court case, Letter Carriers v. Austin, in which Justice Thurgood Marshall referred to it as "a well-known piece of trade union literature, generally attributed to author Jack London". A union newsletter had published a "list of scabs," which was granted to be factual and therefore not libelous, but then went on to quote the passage as the "definition of a scab". The case turned on the question of whether the "definition" was defamatory. The court ruled that "Jack London's... 'definition of a scab' is merely rhetorical hyperbole, a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt felt by union members towards those who refuse to join", and as such was not libelous and was protected under the First Amendment.

Despite being frequently attributed to London, the passage does not appear at all in the extensive collection of his writings at Sonoma State University's website. However, in his book War of the Classes he published a 1903 speech titled "The Scab", which gave a much more balanced view of the topic:

"The laborer who gives more time or strength or skill for the same wage than another, or equal time or strength or skill for a less wage, is a scab. The generousness on his part is hurtful to his fellow-laborers, for it compels them to an equal generousness which is not to their liking, and which gives them less of food and shelter. But a word may be said for the scab. Just as his act makes his rivals compulsorily generous, so do they, by fortune of birth and training, make compulsory his act of generousness.

[...]

Nobody desires to scab, to give most for least. The ambition of every individual is quite the opposite, to give least for most; and, as a result, living in a tooth-and-nail society, battle royal is waged by the ambitious individuals. But in its most salient aspect, that of the struggle over the division of the joint product, it is no longer a battle between individuals, but between groups of individuals. Capital and labor apply themselves to raw material, make something useful out of it, add to its value, and then proceed to quarrel over the division of the added value. Neither cares to give most for least. Each is intent on giving less than the other and on receiving more."

List of publications
Source unless otherwise specified:

Novels
(published anonymously, co-authored with Anna Strunsky) (published in England as The Jacket) (novelization of a script by Charles Goddard) (left half-finished, completed by Robert L. Fish)
 * The Cruise of the Dazzler (1902)
 * A Daughter of the Snows (1902)
 * The Call of the Wild (1903)
 * The Kempton-Wace Letters (1903)
 * The Sea-Wolf (1904)
 * The Game (1905)
 * White Fang (1906)
 * Before Adam (1907)
 * The Iron Heel (1908)
 * Martin Eden (1909)
 * Burning Daylight (1910)
 * Adventure (1911)
 * The Scarlet Plague (1912)
 * A Son of the Sun (1912)
 * The Abysmal Brute (1913)
 * The Valley of the Moon (1913)
 * The Mutiny of the Elsinore (1914)
 * The Star Rover (1915)
 * The Little Lady of the Big House (1916)
 * Jerry of the Islands (1917)
 * Michael, Brother of Jerry (1917)
 * Hearts of Three (1920)
 * The Assassination Bureau, Ltd (1963)

Short story collections

 * Son of the Wolf (1900)
 * The God of His Fathers & Other Stories (1901)
 * Children of the Frost (1902)
 * The Faith of Men and Other Stories (1904)
 * Tales of the Fish Patrol (1906)
 * Moon-Face and Other Stories (1906)
 * Love of Life and Other Stories (1907)
 * Lost Face (1910)
 * South Sea Tales (1911)
 * When God Laughs and Other Stories (1911)
 * The House of Pride & Other Tales of Hawaii (1912)
 * Smoke Bellew (1912)
 * A Son of the Sun (1912)
 * The Night Born (1913)
 * The Strength of the Strong (1914)
 * The Turtles of Tasman (1916)
 * The Human Drift (1917)
 * The Red One (1918)
 * On the Makaloa Mat (1919)
 * Dutch Courage and Other Stories (1922)

Autobiographical memoirs

 * The Road (1907)
 * The Cruise of the Snark (1911)
 * John Barleycorn (1913)

Non-fiction and essays

 * Through the Rapids on the Way to the Klondike (1899)
 * From Dawson to the Sea (1899)
 * What Communities Lose by the Competitive System (1900)
 * The Impossibility of War (1900)
 * Phenomena of Literary Evolution (1900)
 * A Letter to Houghton Mifflin Co. (1900)
 * Husky, Wolf Dog of the North (1900)
 * Editorial Crimes – A Protest (1901)
 * Again the Literary Aspirant (1902)
 * The People of the Abyss (1903)
 * How I Became a Socialist (1903)
 * War of the Classes (1905)
 * The Story of an Eyewitness (1906)
 * A Letter to Woman's Home Companion (1906)
 * "The Lepers of Molokai" in Woman's Home Companion (1908)
 * "The Nature Man" in Woman's Home Companion (1908)
 * "The High Seat of Abundance" in Woman's Home Companion (1908)
 * Revolution, and other Essays (1910)
 * Mexico's Army and Ours (1914)
 * Lawgivers (1914)
 * Our Adventures in Tampico (1914)
 * Stalking the Pestilence (1914)
 * The Red Game of War (1914)
 * The Trouble Makers of Mexico (1914)
 * With Funston's Men (1914)

Plays

 * Theft (1910)
 * Daughters of the Rich: A One Act Play (1915)
 * The Acorn Planter: A California Forest Play (1916)

Poetry

 * A Heart (1899)
 * Abalone Song (1913)
 * And Some Night (1914)
 * Ballade of the False Lover (1914)
 * Cupid's Deal (1913)
 * Daybreak (1901)
 * Effusion (1901)
 * George Sterling (1913)
 * Gold (1915)
 * He Chortled with Glee (1899)
 * He Never Tried Again (1912)
 * His Trip to Hades (1913)
 * Homeland (1914)
 * Hors de Saison (1913)
 * If I Were God (1899)
 * In a Year (1901)
 * In and Out (1911)
 * Je Vis en Espoir (1897)
 * Memory (1913)
 * Moods (1913)
 * My Confession (1912)
 * My Little Palmist (1914)
 * Of Man of the Future (1915)
 * Oh You Everybody's Girl (19)
 * On the Face of the Earth You are the One (1915)
 * Rainbows End (1914)
 * Republican Rallying Song (1916)
 * Sonnet (1901)
 * The Gift of God (1905)
 * The Klondyker's Dream (1914)
 * The Lover's Liturgy (1913)
 * The Mammon Worshippers (1911)
 * The Republican Battle-Hymn (1905)
 * The Return of Ulysses (1915)
 * The Sea Sprite and the Shooting Star (1916)
 * The Socialist's Dream (1912)
 * The Song of the Flames (1903)
 * The Way of War (1906)
 * The Worker and the Tramp (1911)
 * Tick! Tick! Tick! (1915)
 * Too Late (1912)
 * Weasel Thieves (1913)
 * When All the World Shouted my Name (1905)
 * Where the Rainbow Fell (1902)
 * Your Kiss (1914)

Short stories

 * "Typhoon off the Coast of Japan" (November 12, 1893)
 * " 'Frisco Kid's' Story" (February 15, 1895)
 * "Sakaicho, Hona Asi and Hakadaki" (April 19, 1895)
 * "Night's Swim In Yeddo Bay" (May 27, 1895)
 * "Who Believes in Ghosts!" (October 21, 1895)
 * "And 'Frisco Kid Came Back" (November 4, 1895)
 * "One More Unfortunate" (December 18, 1895)
 * "O Haru" (1993; written in April 1897)
 * "The Mahatma's Little Joke" (1993; written in May 1897)
 * "The Strange Experience of a Misogynist" (1993; written between May and September 1897), originally titled "The Misogynist"
 * "Two Gold Bricks" (September 1897)
 * "The Plague Ship" (1993; written between September and December 1897)
 * "The Devil's Dice Box" (December 1976; written in September 1898)
 * "The Test: A Clondyke Wooing" (1983; written in September 1898)
 * "A Klondike Christmas" (1983; written in November 1898)
 * "A Dream Image" (1898)
 * "To the Man on Trail: A Klondike Christmas" (January 1899)
 * "The White Silence" (February 1899)
 * "The Son of the Wolf" (April 1899)
 * "The Men of Forty-Mile" (May 1899)
 * "A Thousand Deaths" (May 1899)
 * "An Old Soldier's Story" (May 20, 1899)
 * "In a Far Country" (June 1899)
 * "The Priestly Prerogative" (July 1899)
 * "The Handsome Cabin Boy" (July 1899)
 * "The Wife of a King" (August 1899)
 * "In the Time of Prince Charley" (September 1899)
 * "Old Baldy" (September 16, 1899)
 * "The Grilling of Loren Ellery" (September 24, 1899)
 * "The Rejuvenation of Major Rathbone" (November 1899)
 * "The King of Mazy May" (November 30, 1899)
 * "The Wisdom of the Trail" (December 1899)
 * "A Daughter of the Aurora" (December 24, 1899)
 * "Pluck and Pertinacity" (1899)
 * "An Odyssey of the North" (January 1900)
 * "A Lesson in Heraldry" (March 1900)
 * "The End of the Chapter" (June 9, 1900)
 * "Uri Bram's God" (June 24, 1900)
 * "Even unto Death" (July 28, 1900)
 * "Grit of Women" (August 1900)
 * "Jan the Unrepentant" (August 1900)
 * "The Man with the Gash" (September 1900)
 * "Their Alcove" (September 1900)
 * "Housekeeping in the Klondike" (September 16, 1900)
 * "The Proper 'Girlie' " (October 1900)
 * "Thanksgiving on Slav Creek" (November 24, 1900)
 * "Where the Trail Forks" (December 1900)
 * "The Great Interrogation" (December 1900)
 * "Semper Idem" (December 1900)
 * "A Northland Miracle" (November 4, 1926; written in 1900)
 * "Dutch Courage" (November 29, 1900)
 * "A Relic of the Pliocene" (January 12, 1901)
 * "The Law of Life" (March 1901)
 * "Siwash" (March 1901)
 * "The Lost Poacher" (March 14, 1901)
 * "At the Rainbow's End" (March 24, 1901)
 * "The God of His Fathers" (May 1901)
 * "The Scorn of Woman" (May 1901)
 * "The Minions of Midas" (May 1901)
 * "Chris Farrington: Able Seaman" (May 23, 1901)
 * "A Hyperborean Brew" (July 1901)
 * "Bald Face" (September 6, 1901)
 * "Keesh, Son of Keesh" (January 1902)
 * "An Adventure in the Upper Sea" (May 1902)
 * "To Build a Fire" (May 29, 1902, revised August 1908)
 * "Diable --- A Dog" (June 1902), renamed Bâtard in 1904
 * "To Repel Boarders" (June 1902)
 * "The 'Fuzziness' of Hoockla-Heen" (July 3, 1902)
 * "Moon-Face" (July 21, 1902)
 * "Nam-Bok, the Liar" (August 1902)
 * "Li Wan the Fair" (August 1902)
 * "The Master of Mystery" (September 1902)
 * "In the Forests of the North" (September 1902)
 * "The Sunlanders" (September 1902)
 * "The Death of Ligoun" (September 1902)
 * "The Story of Jees Uck" (September 1902)
 * "The Sickness of Lone Chief" (October 1902)
 * "The League of the Old Men" (October 4, 1902)
 * "Lost Face" (1902)
 * "In Yeddo Bay" (February 1903)
 * "The One Thousand Dozen" (March 1903)
 * "The Shadow and the Flash" (June 1903)
 * "The Faith of Men" (June 1903)
 * "The Leopard Man's Story" (August 1903)
 * "The Marriage of Lit-Lit" (September 1903)
 * "Local Color" (October 1903)
 * "Too Much Gold" (December 1903)
 * "Amateur Night" (December 1903)
 * "The Dominant Primordial Beast" (1903)
 * "Keesh, The Bear Hunter" (January 1904); often reprinted as "The Story of Keesh"
 * "The Banks of the Sacramento" (March 17, 1904)
 * "White and Yellow" (February 16, 1905)
 * "The King of the Greeks" (March 2, 1905)
 * "A Raid on the Oyster Pirates" (March 16, 1905)
 * "The Siege of the 'Lancashire Queen' " (March 30, 1905)
 * "Charley's Coup" (April 13, 1905)
 * "Demetrios Contos" (April 27, 1905)
 * "Yellow Handkerchief" (May 11, 1905)
 * "All Gold Cañon" (November 1905)
 * "Love of Life" (December 1905)
 * "The Sun-Dog Trail" (December 1905)
 * "A Nose for the King" (March 1906)
 * "Planchette" (June 1906)
 * "The Unexpected" (August 1906)
 * "Brown Wolf" (August 1906)
 * "The Apostate" (September 1906)
 * "Up the Slide" (October 25, 1906)
 * "A Wicked Woman" (November 1906)
 * "The White Man's Way" (November 4, 1906)
 * "The Wit of Porportuk" (December 1906)
 * "When God Laughs" (January 1907)
 * "Just Meat" (March 1907)
 * "Created He Them" (April 1907)
 * "Morganson's Finish" (May 1907)
 * "A Day's Lodging" (May 25, 1907)
 * "Negore the Coward" (September 1907)
 * "Chased by the Trail" (September 26, 1907)
 * "The Passing of Marcus O'Brien" (January 1908)
 * "Trust" (January 1908)
 * "That Spot" (February 1908)
 * "Flush of Gold" (April 1908)
 * "Make Westing" (April 1908)
 * "The Enemy of All the World" (October 1908)
 * "Aloha Oe" (December 1908)
 * "A Curious Fragment" (December 10, 1908)
 * "The Dream of Debs" (January 1909)
 * "The House of Mapuhi" (January 1909)
 * "The Seed of McCoy" (April 1909)
 * "The Madness of John Harned" (May 1909)
 * "South of the Slot" (May 22, 1909)
 * "Good-by, Jack" (June 1909)
 * "The Chinago" (June 26, 1909)
 * "The Sheriff of Kona" (August 1909)
 * "The Heathen" (September 1909)
 * "A Piece of Steak" (November 20, 1909)
 * "Koolau the Leper" (December 1909)
 * "Mauki" (December 1909)
 * "The Mission of John Starhurst" (December 29, 1909); reprinted as "The Whale Tooth"
 * "Samuel" (1909)
 * "Chun An Chun" (Spring 1910)
 * "The Terrible Solomons" (March 1910)
 * "The Inevitable White Man" (May 14, 1910)
 * "The Unparalleled Invasion" (July 1910)
 * "Winged Blackmail" (September 1910)
 * "When the World was Young" (September 10, 1910)
 * "The Benefit of the Doubt" (November 12, 1910)
 * "Under the Deck Awnings" (November 19, 1910)
 * "Yah! Yah! Yah!" (December 1910)
 * "The House of Pride" (December 1910)
 * "To Kill a Man" (December 10, 1910)
 * "Bunches of Knuckles" (December 18, 1910)
 * "Goliath" (1910)
 * "The 'Francis Spaight' " (January 1911)
 * "The Hobo and the Fairy" (February 11, 1911)
 * "The Strength of the Strong" (March 1911)
 * "The Eternity of Forms" (March 1911)
 * "A Son of the Sun" (May 27. 1911)
 * "The Taste of the Meat" (June 1911)
 * "The Proud Goat of Aloysius Pankburn" (June 24, 1911)
 * "The Meat" (July 1911)
 * "The Night Born" (July 1911)
 * "War" (July 29, 1911)
 * "The Goat Man of Fuatino" (July 20, 1911)
 * "The Stampede to Squaw Creek" (August 1911)
 * "The Mexican" (August 19, 1911)
 * "Shorty Dreams" (September 1911)
 * "A Little Account with Swithin Hall" (September 2, 1911)
 * "A Goboto Night" (September 30, 1911)
 * "The Man on the Other Bank" (October 1911)
 * "The Pearls of Parlay" (October 14, 1911)
 * "The Race for Number Three" (November 1911)
 * "The End of the Story" (November 1911)
 * " The Jokers of New Gibbon" (November 11, 1911)
 * "By the Turtles of Tasman" (November 19, 1911)
 * "The Little Man" (December 1911)
 * "The Unmasking of the Cad" (December 23, 1911)
 * "The Hanging of Cultus George" (January 1912)
 * "The Mistake of Creation" (February 1912)
 * "A Flutter in Eggs" (March 1912)
 * "The Sea-Farmer" (March 1912)
 * "The Feathers of the Sun" (March 9, 1912)
 * "The Town-Site of Tra-Lee" (April 1912)
 * "Wonder of Woman" (May 1912)
 * "The Prodigal Father" (May 1912)
 * "The Scarlet Plague" (June 1912)
 * "The Captain of the Susan Drew" (December 1, 1912)
 * "Samuel" (May 1913)
 * "The Sea-Gangsters" (November 1913)
 * "Told in the Drooling Ward" (June 1914)
 * "The Hussy" (December 1916)
 * "Man of Mine" (February 1917)
 * "Like Argus of the Ancient Times" (March 1917)
 * "Jerry of the Islands" (1917)
 * "When Alice Told Her Soul" (March 1918)
 * "The Princess" (June 1918)
 * "The Tears of Ah Kim" (July 1918)
 * "The Water Baby" (September 1918)
 * "The Red One" (October 1918)
 * "In the Cave of the Dead" (November 1918)
 * "Shin-Bones" (1918)
 * "On the Makaloa Mat" (March 1919)
 * "The Bones of Kahekili" (July 1919)
 * " Whose Business Is to Live" (September 1922)
 * "Eyes of Asia" (September 1924)

Legacy and honors

 * Mount London, also known as Boundary Peak 100, on the Alaska-British Columbia boundary, in the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, is named for him.
 * Jack London Square on the waterfront of Oakland, California was named for him.
 * He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 25¢ Great Americans series postage stamp released on January 11, 1986.
 * Jack London Lake (Озеро Джека Лондона), a mountain lake located in the upper reaches of the Kolyma River in Yagodninsky district of Magadan Oblast.
 * Fictional portrayals of London include Michael O'Shea in the 1943 film Jack London, Jeff East in the 1980 film Klondike Fever, Michael Aron in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Time's Arrow from 1992, Aaron Ashmore in the Murdoch Mysteries episode "Murdoch of the Klondike" from 2012, and Johnny Simmons in the 2014 miniseries Klondike.

title: Jack London


text:
User:Atn55

User page of Atn55

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Atn55


text:
Suzuki (disambiguation)

Suzuki is a Japanese multinational corporation.

Suzuki may also refer to:

 * Suzuki (surname), a Japanese surname
 * Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation, a Japanese company that produces musical instruments
 * Suzuki (album), an album by duo Tosca
 * Suzuki (fish) (also Japanese sea bass), a fish of the family Lateolabracidae

title: Suzuki (disambiguation)


text:
User talk:Atn55

Hello there, and welcome to the 'pedia! I made a couple of changes to the Dodge and The Dukes of Hazard articles you created. What I did was added titles and links where needed -- a process we wikipedians like to call "wikify". In the future, you can use these as examples or you can check out The Perfect Stub Article. BTW good work and power to the wiki! --maveric149

title: User talk:Atn55


text:
Alternating current

Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in which electric power is delivered to businesses and residences, and it is the form of electrical energy that consumers typically use when they plug kitchen appliances, televisions, fans and electric lamps into a wall socket. The abbreviations AC and DC are often used to mean simply alternating and direct, respectively, as when they modify current or voltage.

The usual waveform of alternating current in most electric power circuits is a sine wave, whose positive half-period corresponds with positive direction of the current and vice versa (the full period is called a cycle). In certain applications, like guitar amplifiers, different waveforms are used, such as triangular waves or square waves. Audio and radio signals carried on electrical wires are also examples of alternating current. These types of alternating current carry information such as sound (audio) or images (video) sometimes carried by modulation of an AC carrier signal. These currents typically alternate at higher frequencies than those used in power transmission.

Transmission, distribution, and domestic power supply

Electrical energy is distributed as alternating current because AC voltage may be increased or decreased with a transformer. This allows the power to be transmitted through power lines efficiently at high voltage, which reduces the energy lost as heat due to resistance of the wire, and transformed to a lower, safer voltage for use. Use of a higher voltage leads to significantly more efficient transmission of power. The power losses ($$P_{\rm w}$$) in the wire are a product of the square of the current ( I ) and the resistance (R) of the wire, described by the formula:

 * $$P_{\rm w} = I^2 R \, .$$

This means that when transmitting a fixed power on a given wire, if the current is halved (i.e. the voltage is doubled), the power loss due to the wire's resistance will be reduced to one quarter.

The power transmitted is equal to the product of the current and the voltage (assuming no phase difference); that is,
 * $$P_{\rm t} = IV \, .$$

Consequently, power transmitted at a higher voltage requires less loss-producing current than for the same power at a lower voltage. Power is often transmitted at hundreds of kilovolts on pylons, and transformed down to tens of kilovolts to be transmitted on lower level lines, and finally transformed down to 100 V – 240 V for domestic use.

High voltages have disadvantages, such as the increased insulation required, and generally increased difficulty in their safe handling. In a power plant, energy is generated at a convenient voltage for the design of a generator, and then stepped up to a high voltage for transmission. Near the loads, the transmission voltage is stepped down to the voltages used by equipment. Consumer voltages vary somewhat depending on the country and size of load, but generally motors and lighting are built to use up to a few hundred volts between phases. The voltage delivered to equipment such as lighting and motor loads is standardized, with an allowable range of voltage over which equipment is expected to operate. Standard power utilization voltages and percentage tolerance vary in the different mains power systems found in the world.

High-voltage direct-current (HVDC) electric power transmission systems have become more viable as technology has provided efficient means of changing the voltage of DC power. Transmission with high voltage direct current was not feasible in the early days of electric power transmission, as there was then no economically viable way to step the voltage of DC down for end user applications such as lighting incandescent bulbs.

Three-phase electrical generation is very common. The simplest way is to use three separate coils in the generator stator, physically offset by an angle of 120° (one-third of a complete 360° phase) to each other. Three current waveforms are produced that are equal in magnitude and 120° out of phase to each other. If coils are added opposite to these (60° spacing), they generate the same phases with reverse polarity and so can be simply wired together. In practice, higher "pole orders" are commonly used. For example, a 12-pole machine would have 36 coils (10° spacing). The advantage is that lower rotational speeds can be used to generate the same frequency. For example, a 2-pole machine running at 3600 rpm and a 12-pole machine running at 600 rpm produce the same frequency; the lower speed is preferable for larger machines. If the load on a three-phase system is balanced equally among the phases, no current flows through the neutral point. Even in the worst-case unbalanced (linear) load, the neutral current will not exceed the highest of the phase currents. Non-linear loads (e.g. the switch-mode power supplies widely used) may require an oversized neutral bus and neutral conductor in the upstream distribution panel to handle harmonics. Harmonics can cause neutral conductor current levels to exceed that of one or all phase conductors.

For three-phase at utilization voltages a four-wire system is often used. When stepping down three-phase, a transformer with a Delta (3-wire) primary and a Star (4-wire, center-earthed) secondary is often used so there is no need for a neutral on the supply side. For smaller customers (just how small varies by country and age of the installation) only a single phase and neutral, or two phases and neutral, are taken to the property. For larger installations all three phases and neutral are taken to the main distribution panel. From the three-phase main panel, both single and three-phase circuits may lead off. Three-wire single-phase systems, with a single center-tapped transformer giving two live conductors, is a common distribution scheme for residential and small commercial buildings in North America. This arrangement is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "two phase". A similar method is used for a different reason on construction sites in the UK. Small power tools and lighting are supposed to be supplied by a local center-tapped transformer with a voltage of 55 V between each power conductor and earth. This significantly reduces the risk of electric shock in the event that one of the live conductors becomes exposed through an equipment fault whilst still allowing a reasonable voltage of 110 V between the two conductors for running the tools.

A third wire, called the bond (or earth) wire, is often connected between non-current-carrying metal enclosures and earth ground. This conductor provides protection from electric shock due to accidental contact of circuit conductors with the metal chassis of portable appliances and tools. Bonding all non-current-carrying metal parts into one complete system ensures there is always a low electrical impedance path to ground sufficient to carry any fault current for as long as it takes for the system to clear the fault. This low impedance path allows the maximum amount of fault current, causing the overcurrent protection device (breakers, fuses) to trip or burn out as quickly as possible, bringing the electrical system to a safe state. All bond wires are bonded to ground at the main service panel, as is the neutral/identified conductor if present.

AC power supply frequencies
The frequency of the electrical system varies by country and sometimes within a country; most electric power is generated at either 50 or 60 Hertz. Some countries have a mixture of 50 Hz and 60 Hz supplies, notably electricity power transmission in Japan.

Low frequency
A low frequency eases the design of electric motors, particularly for hoisting, crushing and rolling applications, and commutator-type traction motors for applications such as railways. However, low frequency also causes noticeable flicker in arc lamps and incandescent light bulbs. The use of lower frequencies also provided the advantage of lower transmission losses, which are proportional to frequency.

The original Niagara Falls generators were built to produce 25 Hz power, as a compromise between low frequency for traction and heavy induction motors, while still allowing incandescent lighting to operate (although with noticeable flicker). Most of the 25 Hz residential and commercial customers for Niagara Falls power were converted to 60 Hz by the late 1950s, although some 25 Hz industrial customers still existed as of the start of the 21st century. 16.7 Hz power (formerly 16 2/3 Hz) is still used in some European rail systems, such as in Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

High frequency
Off-shore, military, textile industry, marine, aircraft, and spacecraft applications sometimes use 400 Hz, for benefits of reduced weight of apparatus or higher motor speeds. Computer mainframe systems were often powered by 400 Hz or 415 Hz for benefits of ripple reduction while using smaller internal AC to DC conversion units.

Effects at high frequencies
A direct current flows uniformly throughout the cross-section of a homogeneous electrically conducting wire. An alternating current of any frequency is forced away from the wire's center, toward its outer surface. This is because an alternating current (which is the result of the acceleration of electric charge) creates electromagnetic waves (a phenomenon known as electromagnetic radiation). Electric conductors are not conducive to electromagnetic waves (a perfect electric conductor prohibits all electromagnetic waves within its boundary), so a wire that is made of a non-perfect conductor (a conductor with finite, rather than infinite, electrical conductivity) pushes the alternating current, along with their associated electromagnetic fields, away from the wire's center. The phenomenon of alternating current being pushed away from the center of the conductor is called skin effect, and a direct current does not exhibit this effect, since a direct current does not create electromagnetic waves.

At very high frequencies, the current no longer flows in the wire, but effectively flows on the surface of the wire, within a thickness of a few skin depths. The skin depth is the thickness at which the current density is reduced by 63%. Even at relatively low frequencies used for power transmission (50 Hz – 60 Hz), non-uniform distribution of current still occurs in sufficiently thick conductors. For example, the skin depth of a copper conductor is approximately 8.57 mm at 60 Hz, so high current conductors are usually hollow to reduce their mass and cost. This tendency of alternating current to flow predominantly in the periphery of conductors reduces the effective cross-section of the conductor. This increases the effective AC resistance of the conductor, since resistance is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area. A conductor's AC resistance is higher than its DC resistance, causing a higher energy loss due to ohmic heating (also called I2R loss).

Techniques for reducing AC resistance
For low to medium frequencies, conductors can be divided into stranded wires, each insulated from the others, with the relative positions of individual strands specially arranged within the conductor bundle. Wire constructed using this technique is called Litz wire. This measure helps to partially mitigate skin effect by forcing more equal current throughout the total cross section of the stranded conductors. Litz wire is used for making high-Q inductors, reducing losses in flexible conductors carrying very high currents at lower frequencies, and in the windings of devices carrying higher radio frequency current (up to hundreds of kilohertz), such as switch-mode power supplies and radio frequency transformers.

Techniques for reducing radiation loss
As written above, an alternating current is made of electric charge under periodic acceleration, which causes radiation of electromagnetic waves. Energy that is radiated is lost. Depending on the frequency, different techniques are used to minimize the loss due to radiation.

Twisted pairs
At frequencies up to about 1 GHz, pairs of wires are twisted together in a cable, forming a twisted pair. This reduces losses from electromagnetic radiation and inductive coupling. A twisted pair must be used with a balanced signalling system, so that the two wires carry equal but opposite currents. Each wire in a twisted pair radiates a signal, but it is effectively cancelled by radiation from the other wire, resulting in almost no radiation loss.

Coaxial cables
Coaxial cables are commonly used at audio frequencies and above for convenience. A coaxial cable has a conductive wire inside a conductive tube, separated by a dielectric layer. The current flowing on the surface of the inner conductor is equal and opposite to the current flowing on the inner surface of the outer tube. The electromagnetic field is thus completely contained within the tube, and (ideally) no energy is lost to radiation or coupling outside the tube. Coaxial cables have acceptably small losses for frequencies up to about 5 GHz. For microwave frequencies greater than 5 GHz, the losses (due mainly to the dielectric separating the inner and outer tubes being a non-ideal insulator) become too large, making waveguides a more efficient medium for transmitting energy. Coaxial cables often use a perforated dielectric layer to separate the inner and outer conductors in order to minimize the power dissipated by the dielectric.

Waveguides
Waveguides are similar to coaxial cables, as both consist of tubes, with the biggest difference being that waveguides have no inner conductor. Waveguides can have any arbitrary cross section, but rectangular cross sections are the most common. Because waveguides do not have an inner conductor to carry a return current, waveguides cannot deliver energy by means of an electric current, but rather by means of a guided electromagnetic field. Although surface currents do flow on the inner walls of the waveguides, those surface currents do not carry power. Power is carried by the guided electromagnetic fields. The surface currents are set up by the guided electromagnetic fields and have the effect of keeping the fields inside the waveguide and preventing leakage of the fields to the space outside the waveguide. Waveguides have dimensions comparable to the wavelength of the alternating current to be transmitted, so they are feasible only at microwave frequencies. In addition to this mechanical feasibility, electrical resistance of the non-ideal metals forming the walls of the waveguide causes dissipation of power (surface currents flowing on lossy conductors dissipate power). At higher frequencies, the power lost to this dissipation becomes unacceptably large.

Fiber optics
At frequencies greater than 200 GHz, waveguide dimensions become impractically small, and the ohmic losses in the waveguide walls become large. Instead, fiber optics, which are a form of dielectric waveguides, can be used. For such frequencies, the concepts of voltages and currents are no longer used.

Mathematics of AC voltages
[[File:Sine voltage.svg|right|thumb|A sinusoidal alternating voltage.1. Peak,

2. Peak-to-peak amplitude,

3. Effective value,

4. Period]] Alternating currents are accompanied (or caused) by alternating voltages. An AC voltage v can be described mathematically as a function of time by the following equation:

 * $$v(t) = V_\text{peak}\sin(\omega t)$$,

where
 * $$V_\text{peak}$$ is the peak voltage (unit: volt),
 * $$\omega$$ is the angular frequency (unit: radians per second). The angular frequency is related to the physical frequency, $$f$$ (unit: hertz), which represents the number of cycles per second, by the equation $$\omega = 2\pi f$$.
 * $$t$$ is the time (unit: second).

The peak-to-peak value of an AC voltage is defined as the difference between its positive peak and its negative peak. Since the maximum value of $$\sin(x)$$ is +1 and the minimum value is −1, an AC voltage swings between $$+V_\text{peak}$$ and $$-V_\text{peak}$$. The peak-to-peak voltage, usually written as $$V_\text{pp}$$ or $$V_\text{P-P}$$, is therefore $$V_\text{peak} - (-V_\text{peak}) = 2 V_\text{peak}$$.

Root mean square voltage

Below an AC waveform (with no DC component) is assumed.

The RMS voltage is the square root of the mean over one cycle of the square of the instantaneous voltage.

Power
The relationship between voltage and the power delivered is:
 * $$p(t) = \frac{v^2(t)}{R}$$,

where $$R$$ represents a load resistance.

Rather than using instantaneous power, $$p(t)$$, it is more practical to use a time-averaged power (where the averaging is performed over any integer number of cycles). Therefore, AC voltage is often expressed as a root mean square (RMS) value, written as $$V_\text{rms}$$, because
 * $$P_\text{average} = \frac{{V_\text{rms}}^2}{R}.$$

For this reason, AC power's waveform becomes Full-wave rectified sine, and its fundamental frequency is double of the one of the voltage's.
 * Power oscillation: $$\begin{align} v(t) &= V_\text{peak}\sin(\omega t) \\ i(t) &= \frac{v(t)}{R} = \frac{V_\text{peak}}{R}\sin(\omega t) \\ p(t) &= v(t)i(t) = \frac{(V_\text{peak})^2}{R}\sin^2(\omega t) = \frac{(V_\text{peak})^2}{2 R} \ (1 - \cos(2 \omega t) ) \end{align}$$

Examples of alternating current
To illustrate these concepts, consider a 230 V AC mains supply used in many countries around the world. It is so called because its root mean square value is 230 V. This means that the time-averaged power delivered $$P_\text{average}$$ is equivalent to the power delivered by a DC voltage of 230 V. To determine the peak voltage (amplitude), we can rearrange the above equation to:
 * $$V_\text{peak} = \sqrt{2}\ V_\text{rms}$$
 * $$P_\text{peak} = \frac{(V_\text{rms})^2}{R}\frac{(V_\text{peak})^2}{(V_\text{rms})^2} = \text{P}_\text{average}\sqrt{2}^2 = \text{2}P_\text{average}.$$

For 230 V AC, the peak voltage $$V_\text{peak}$$ is therefore $$230\text{ V}\times\sqrt{2}$$, which is about 325 V, and the peak power $$P_\text{peak}$$ is $$230 \times R \times W \times 2$$, that is 460 RW. During the course of one cycle (two cycle as the power) the voltage rises from zero to 325 V, the power from zero to 460 RW, and both falls through zero. Next, the voltage descends to reverse direction, -325 V, but the power ascends again to 460 RW, and both returns to zero.

Information transmission
Alternating current is used to transmit information, as in the cases of telephone and cable television. Information signals are carried over a wide range of AC frequencies. POTS telephone signals have a frequency of about 3 kHz, close to the baseband audio frequency. Cable television and other cable-transmitted information currents may alternate at frequencies of tens to thousands of megahertz. These frequencies are similar to the electromagnetic wave frequencies often used to transmit the same types of information over the air.

History
The first alternator to produce alternating current was an electric generator based on Michael Faraday's principles constructed by the French instrument maker Hippolyte Pixii in 1832. Pixii later added a commutator to his device to produce the (then) more commonly used direct current. The earliest recorded practical application of alternating current is by Guillaume Duchenne, inventor and developer of electrotherapy. In 1855, he announced that AC was superior to direct current for electrotherapeutic triggering of muscle contractions. Alternating current technology was developed further by the Hungarian Ganz Works company (1870s), and in the 1880s: Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, Lucien Gaulard, and Galileo Ferraris.

In 1876, Russian engineer Pavel Yablochkov invented a lighting system where sets of induction coils were installed along a high voltage AC line. Instead of changing voltage, the primary windings transferred power to the secondary windings which were connected to one or several 'electric candles' (arc lamps) of his own design, used to keep the failure of one lamp from disabling the entire circuit. In 1878, the Ganz factory, Budapest, Hungary, began manufacturing equipment for electric lighting and, by 1883, had installed over fifty systems in Austria-Hungary. Their AC systems used arc and incandescent lamps, generators, and other equipment.

Transformers
Alternating current systems can use transformers to change voltage from low to high level and back, allowing generation and consumption at low voltages but transmission, possibly over great distances, at high voltage, with savings in the cost of conductors and energy losses. A bipolar open-core power transformer developed by Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs was demonstrated in London in 1881, and attracted the interest of Westinghouse. They also exhibited the invention in Turin in 1884. However, these early induction coils with open magnetic circuits are inefficient at transferring power to loads. Until about 1880, the paradigm for AC power transmission from a high voltage supply to a low voltage load was a series circuit. Open-core transformers with a ratio near 1:1 were connected with their primaries in series to allow use of a high voltage for transmission while presenting a low voltage to the lamps. The inherent flaw in this method was that turning off a single lamp (or other electric device) affected the voltage supplied to all others on the same circuit. Many adjustable transformer designs were introduced to compensate for this problematic characteristic of the series circuit, including those employing methods of adjusting the core or bypassing the magnetic flux around part of a coil. The direct current systems did not have these drawbacks, giving it significant advantages over early AC systems.

In the UK, Sebastian de Ferranti, who had been developing AC generators and transformers in London since 1882, redesigned the AC system at the Grosvenor Gallery power station in 1886 for the London Electric Supply Corporation (LESCo) including alternators of his own design and open core transformer designs with serial connections for utilization loads - similar to Gaulard and Gibbs. In 1890, he designed their power station at Deptford and converted the Grosvenor Gallery station across the Thames into an electrical substation, showing the way to integrate older plants into a universal AC supply system.

Pioneers

In the autumn of 1884, Károly Zipernowsky, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri (ZBD), three engineers associated with the Ganz Works of Budapest, determined that open-core devices were impractical, as they were incapable of reliably regulating voltage. Bláthy had suggested the use of closed cores, Zipernowsky had suggested the use of parallel shunt connections, and Déri had performed the experiments; In their joint 1885 patent applications for novel transformers (later called ZBD transformers), they described two designs with closed magnetic circuits where copper windings were either wound around a ring core of iron wires or else surrounded by a core of iron wires. In both designs, the magnetic flux linking the primary and secondary windings traveled almost entirely within the confines of the iron core, with no intentional path through air (see toroidal cores). The new transformers were 3.4 times more efficient than the open-core bipolar devices of Gaulard and Gibbs. The Ganz factory in 1884 shipped the world's first five high-efficiency AC transformers. This first unit had been manufactured to the following specifications: 1,400 W, 40 Hz, 120:72 V, 11.6:19.4 A, ratio 1.67:1, one-phase, shell form.

The ZBD patents included two other major interrelated innovations: one concerning the use of parallel connected, instead of series connected, utilization loads, the other concerning the ability to have high turns ratio transformers such that the supply network voltage could be much higher (initially 1400 V to 2000 V) than the voltage of utilization loads (100 V initially preferred). When employed in parallel connected electric distribution systems, closed-core transformers finally made it technically and economically feasible to provide electric power for lighting in homes, businesses and public spaces. The other essential milestone was the introduction of 'voltage source, voltage intensive' (VSVI) systems' by the invention of constant voltage generators in 1885. In early 1885, the three engineers also eliminated the problem of eddy current losses with the invention of the lamination of electromagnetic cores. Ottó Bláthy also invented the first AC electricity meter.

The AC power system was developed and adopted rapidly after 1886 due to its ability to distribute electricity efficiently over long distances, overcoming the limitations of the direct current system. In 1886, the ZBD engineers designed the world's first power station that used AC generators to power a parallel-connected common electrical network, the steam-powered Rome-Cerchi power plant. The reliability of the AC technology received impetus after the Ganz Works electrified a large European metropolis: Rome in 1886.

Building on the advancement of AC technology in Europe, George Westinghouse founded the Westinghouse Electric in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on January 8, 1886. The new firm became active in developing alternating current (AC) electric infrastructure throughout the United States. The Edison Electric Light Company held an option on the US rights for the Ganz ZBD transformers, requiring Westinghouse to pursue alternative designs on the same principles. George Westinghouse had bought Gaulard and Gibbs' patents for $50,000 in February 1886. He assigned to William Stanley the task of redesigning the Gaulard and Gibbs transformer for commercial use in United States. On March 20, 1886, Stanley conducted a demonstrative experiment in Great Barrington: A Siemens generator's voltage of 500 volts was converted into 3000 volts, and then the voltage was stepped down to 500 volts by six Westinghouse transformers. With this setup, the Westinghouse company successfully powered thirty 100-volt incandescent bulbs in twenty shops along the main street of Great Barrington. The spread of Westinghouse and other AC systems triggered a push back in late 1887 by Thomas Edison (a proponent of direct current), who attempted to discredit alternating current as too dangerous in a public campaign called the "war of the currents". In 1888, alternating current systems gained further viability with introduction of a functional AC motor, something these systems had lacked up till then. The design, an induction motor, was independently invented by Galileo Ferraris and Nikola Tesla (with Tesla's design being licensed by Westinghouse in the US). This design was independently further developed into the modern practical three-phase form by Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky and Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown in Germany on one side, and Jonas Wenström in Sweden on the other, though Brown favoured the two-phase system.

The Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant and the original Niagara Falls Adams Power Plant were among the first hydroelectric alternating current power plants. The first long distance transmission of single-phase electricity was from a hydroelectric generating plant in Oregon at Willamette Falls which in 1890 sent power fourteen miles downriver to downtown Portland for street lighting. In 1891, a second transmission system was installed in Telluride Colorado. The San Antonio Canyon Generator was the third commercial single-phase hydroelectric AC power plant in the United States to provide long-distance electricity. It was completed on December 31, 1892, by Almarian William Decker to provide power to the city of Pomona, California, which was 14 miles away. Meanwhile, the possibility of transferring electrical power from a waterfall at a distance was explored at the Grängesberg mine in Sweden. A $45 m$ fall at Hällsjön, Smedjebackens kommun, where a small iron work had been located, was selected. In 1893, a three-phase $9.5 Kilovolt|kv$ system was used to transfer 400 horsepower a distance of $15 km$, becoming the first commercial application. In 1893, Decker designed the first American commercial three-phase power plant using alternating current—the hydroelectric Mill Creek No. 1 Hydroelectric Plant near Redlands, California. Decker's design incorporated 10 kV three-phase transmission and established the standards for the complete system of generation, transmission and motors used in USA today. The Jaruga Hydroelectric Power Plant in Croatia was set in operation on 28 August 1895. The two generators (42 Hz, 550 kW each) and the transformers were produced and installed by the Hungarian company Ganz. The transmission line from the power plant to the City of Šibenik was 11.5 km long on wooden towers, and the municipal distribution grid 3000 V/110 V included six transforming stations.

Alternating current circuit theory developed rapidly in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th century. Notable contributors to the theoretical basis of alternating current calculations include Charles Steinmetz, Oliver Heaviside, and many others. Calculations in unbalanced three-phase systems were simplified by the symmetrical components methods discussed by Charles LeGeyt Fortescue in 1918.

title: Alternating current