John White Howell

John White Howell ( born December 22, 1857 in New Brunswick, New Jersey; † July 28, 1937 ) was an American electrical engineer.

The son of son of Martin Armstrong and Abigail Lucetta ( Stout ) Howell attended the College of the City of New York ( 1874-76 ), the Rutgers College ( 1876-1878 ) and the Stevens Institute of Technology ( 1878-1881 ), where he wrote his dissertation Economy of Electric Lighting by Incandescence.

In 1881 he joined the development department of the Edison Laboratory in Menlo Park, and worked on the photometric measurement and testing of incandescent lamps and developing methods and processes for their preparation. In 1885 he published the results of his extensive testing of lamp life.

As Edison in 1890 again led a patent process, the lawyers argued the U.S. Electric Lighting Company, that Edison's patent from 1880 was invalid because the lamp producing one can not reproduce the basis of the materials and methods described in the patent specification. After two of Edison's lab technician had failed in the attempt, Howell was entrusted with it. He succeeded in 30-40 working "tar putty " to produce carbon filament lamps for the court.

From 1893 until his retirement in 1931 he was chief engineer of the Edison Lamp Works.