\textit{Sparking Imaginations}: a museum-style exhibit on the history of electrical science and electrical power generation

From late October of 2014 through mid-January of 2015, the \textit{Sparking Imaginations} exhibit was on display at Collins Memorial Library at the University of Puget Sound. This museum-style exhibit detailed the history of electrical science from Benjamin Franklin through the development of the Rural Electrification Act and discussed electrical power generation in the Tacoma, Washington area and in the present-day United States. The exhibit featured primary source materials from the Collins Memorial Library (including items from the Senator Homer T. Bone collection, an early advocate for public utilities in Congress), instruments from the University of Puget Sound's Physics Department (including a replica of an eighteenth-century friction machine, a nineteenth-century galvanometer, and a dissectible transformer), and historic photographs, power meters, and gauges provided by Tacoma Public Utilities. Patrons were also able to explore hands-on demonstrations such as the ``human battery,'' a hand-crank generator, and an induction pendulum. In this presentation, we will describe the exhibit and the impact that it had on the Puget Sound campus and the broader Tacoma community.