Lindsey Graham

But when Tesla pushed his investors to look beyond arc lines toward his AC motor, they had no interest.

Once the Rahway installation was complete, they simply reorganized the business to suit themselves, cutting Tesla out of the process and taking ownership of the patents he had handed over in exchange for shares that turned out to be worthless.

Suddenly, Nikola Tesla was again jobless and broke.

He had been in America for two years, and despite demonstrating a knack for innovation and hard work, he had little to show for his efforts.

And soon, his dream of a new electrical system would be pushed even further out of reach by a national crisis.

In the spring of 1886, as a booming economy created a widening gulf between rich and poor, tensions between unions and industry leaders erupted into violent clashes.

When workers from the Union Pacific Railroad tried to join labor unions, railroad owners responded with force, igniting a wave of violence across five states and prompting state militias to be called out in Missouri and Texas.

In New York City, more than 15,000 striking streetcar drivers clashed with police as they fought for a shorter workday and a minimum wage.

Then, on May 4, 1886, a deadly bombing and police shooting at a labor protest at Chicago's Haymarket Square killed more than 10 people and injured dozens of others, spreading panic across the nation.

This labor unrest soon spread to the country's fast-growing electrical industry as well.

When 80 workers at Thomas Edison's New Jersey lamp factory formed a union to call for better conditions, Edison responded angrily and tried to fire one of them.

When other workers objected, he designed 30 machines to automate their work and then promptly fired them as well.

This unrest, spreading across American industry, pointed to a hard truth.

In this new economy, even skilled labor offered no guarantee of security.

Nikola Tesla, who had left Edison's company two years before, knew this better than most.

Stripped of his patents and pushed out of his company, the talented electrical engineer found himself wandering New York, unable to find steady work.

Tesla recalled, There were many days when I did not know where my next meal was coming from.

I was never afraid to work.

Despite his education in physics and math, Tesla turned to manual labor.

And once, when he approached a ditch-digging crew for work, the foreman looked skeptically at his wiry frame and neatly tailored suit, laughing him off.