A huge number of people used to say electricity was dangerous as heck, and must not be used. From the first botched execution by electric chair, to house fire hazards, it's pretty much certain that Edison and Tesla could've been rejected... for a while. Electricity would surely become the "it" thing eventually, but for this challenge, postpone as long as possible. What happens? It's gotta have a huge impact, I'd imagine. Imagine WWI where electricity is a new thing. Imagine all sorts of Edwardian tech that would not work without electricity. So, any takers?
I think it would be impossible to significantly delay electrical research from 1800 onwards.
This is simply down to the fact that early electrical experiments were conducted with incredibly low current devices (low amps) meaning that the quantities of energy being transferred were incredibly low.
I mean, Ampere's and Faraday s experiments at the beginning of the 19thC were basically using Voltaire pile, and the scientific (mathematical) descriptions from 1820-1830 were similarly based on such low energy experimentation. Even with such equipment the practicalities of electrical energy like its conversion to mechanical motion, and vice versa had been well established far earlier than Tesla, Maxwell and Edison come on the scientific stage in teh latter half of the 19thC.
This in principle means that electricity is 'very well understood' long before it starts to find uses within society. Thus it makes it almost impossible for any 'Luddite movement' based on ideology to reject it....and partly why we were so quick to adopt electrical energy over steam power and mechanical devices.
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The 'dawn of the electrical age' would be more like 1885-1890 or so...even then it had been well established in various devices and concepts for over 50 years before then.
Sorry to burst your bubble there...