In August 1891, a three-phase alternating current electrical power system designed by Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky transmitted power over 175 kilometers from a hydroelectric plant at Lauffen am Neckar to Frankfurt am Main in Germany. This demonstration, which powered an artificial waterfall and hundreds of light bulbs at the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt, proved that electrical power could be transmitted over long distances with acceptable efficiency. The Lauffen-Frankfurt transmission, the first successful long-distance three-phase AC power transmission, established the technical foundation for modern electrical power grids worldwide.

The Lauffen-Frankfurt transmission demonstrated that electrical power could flow across the German landscape like an invisible river, connecting distant places in a web of energy that paralleled the emerging networks of railway and telegraph lines. This vision of a landscape crisscrossed by invisible forces resonated with the literary imagination of late nineteenth-century Germany, where writers from Gerhart Hauptmann to Rainer Maria Rilke were exploring how modern technology was transforming the relationship between humanity and the natural world. The artificial waterfall powered by distant water power in Frankfurt became a symbol of nature mediated through technology, a central theme in German literary modernism.