VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
15
Covington, Virginia. He received his pre-
liminary education in the public schools of
that town. In 1894 he entered the Penn-
sylvania State College, from which he re-
ceived the degree B. S. in 1898, and subse-
quently that of E. E. During his college
course he spent one summer in the shops of
the Covington Machine Company, where he
gained practical experience, and also spent
two summers with a civil engineering corps
doing local railway and other surveying.
From July, 1898, to x\ugust. 1899. ^^ was
engaged with the Berwind-White Coal Min-
ing Company at Windbar. Pennsylvania,
where he obtained practical experience in
operating electric locomotives, and the fol-
lowing year was spent in the factory of the
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing
Company at East Pittsburgh, where he gain-
ed further knowledge relating to manufac-
turing details of direct-current and alternat-
ing-current machinery. He took a post-grad-
uate course in electric engineering at Cornell
University, and received the degree of M. M.
E. in 1901. In 1905 the degree of Ph. D.
was conferred upon him by Cornell. From
1901 to 1904 he was successively assistant
and instructor in physics and applied elec-
tricity at Cornell, and in 1904 was acting
assistant professor of electrical engineering
there. From 1905 to 1912 he was associate
editor of the "Electrical World," an engi-
neering journal, of which he is now editor-in-
chief. Since 1909 Dr. McAllister has been
professorial lecturer on electrical engineer-
ing at the Pennsylvania State College. He
was the first to expound and formulate the
application of the law of conservation in
illumination calculations (1911). To him
is due the credit for the development of
simplified circle diagrams of single-phase
and polyphase induction motors and syn-
chronous motors and the absorption-of-light
method of calculating illumination. He has
been granted patents for alternating-current
machinery under dates of 1903, 1904, 1906
and 1907. Dr. McAllister has lectured on
subjects pertaining to his special line of
work before the Cornell Electrical Society,
the New York Electrical Society, the
Columbia University Electrical Society, the
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute Electrical
Engineering Society, the Franklin Institute,
and the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
He is the author of "Alternating-Current
Motors" (1906), used as a text-book in
many of the leading engineering schools,
and of chapters on "Transformers" and
"Motors" in the "Standard Handbook for
Electrical Engineers." He has been a
voluminous contributor on engineering sub-
jects to the technical press, embracing about
one hundred original articles, the most im-
portant being: "Complete Commercial Test
of Pohphase Induction Motors Using One
Wattmeter and One V^oltmeter" (1902) ;
"Excitation of Asynchronous Generators by
Means of Static Condensance" (1903) ;
"Asynchronous Generators" (1903) ; "A
Convenient and Economical Electrical
Method for Determining Mechanical Tor-
que" (1904) ; "Simple Circular Current
Locus of the Induction Motor" (1906) ;
"The Exciting Current of Induction Motor"
(1906) ; "Simple Circle Diagram of the
Single-phase Induction Motor" (1906) ;
"Magnetic Field in the Single-phase Induc-
tion Motor" (1906) ; "Circular Current Loci
of the S3nchronous Motor" (1907) ; "Ab-
sorption of Light Method of Calculating
Illumination" (1908) ; "Bearing of Reflec-
tion on Illumination" (1910) ; "Graphical
Solution of Problems Involving Plane Sur-
face Lighting Sources" (1910), and "The
Law of Conservation as Applied to Illum-
ination Calculations" (1911). Dr. McAllis-
ter is naturallly associated with numerous
scientific organizations including the Amer-
ican Association for the Advancement of
Science, the American Electro-chemical So-
ciety, the National Electric Light Associa-
tion, the New York Electrical Society, of
which he has been vice-president; the Amer-
ican Institute of Electrical Engineers, the
Society for the Promotion of Engineering
Education, and the Illuminating Engineer-
ing Society, "for which he has served as a
director. He is also identified with numer-
ous social organizations which include the
Pennsylvania State College Association of
New York, of which he was president in
191 1 ; the New York Southern Society; the
Virginians of New York ; the Virginia His-
torical Society; the Cornell University Club,
and the Engineers Club, New York ; the
University Club, State College ; the Cornell
Chapter of the Sigma Xi honor society, the
Pennsylvania State College Chapter of the
Phi Kappa Phi honor fraternity, and honor
member of the Pennsylvania State Chapter
of the Eta Kappa Nu electrical fraternity.
