Zénobe Gramme (1826-1901) was born in Jehay-Bodegnée, Belgium. He was an electrical engineer and inventor of the Gramme dynamo (1869), a continuous-current electrical generator that gave principal impetus to the development of electrical power.
Though the Gramme dynamo is occasionally employed in industry today, alternating-current machines have supplanted it as a power source for lighting.
An indifferent student, Gramme preferred to work with his hands. In 1856 he began work in a Paris factory that fabricated apparatus for the infant electrical industry.
In 1869 he conceived his dynamo and in 1871 showed to the Academy of Sciences a working model that produced much higher voltages than did previous dynamos.
Later that year, in partnership with Hippolyte Fontaine, another inventor, he began manufacturing his dynamo. In 1873 a Gramme dynamo was exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition, where it was discovered that the device was reversible and could be used as an electric motor.