Wheeler's mother was the daughter of David Schuyler Skaats, the president of the First National Bank of Waterloo, New York.

Leaving college in 1881, upon the death of his father, he became assistant electrician of the Jablochkov Electric Lighting Company.

[3] He joined the engineering staff of Thomas A. Edison and was part of the project when the Pearl Street Station debuted the first incandescent light bulbs.

[11] During his tenure with Crocker-Wheeler, he was particularly important in development of the electric motors and applying it to machine tool drives.

[3][13] In 1900, he purchased the library of Josiah Latimer Clark, which contained the largest collection of rare electrical works then known.

[1][14][15] In his IEEE presidential address in 1906, he was the progenitor of the Code of Ethics for electrical engineers, which was adopted in 1912 by the Institute's Board of Directors.

[17] Wheeler invented the use of the electric motor in connection the Gatling gun which reduced the work of the operator when firing to simply pressing a button.

Formerly the board of governors made use of an old-fashioned method of dropping a small colored ball into a ballot box to determine their approval or disapproval of the applicant.

The black and white ball plan of indicating a yes or no vote was good as long as there were not many applicants for membership.

If they thought the club would be better off without the applicant, the voting member pressed the black button for an instant tabulation.

[21] These blind workers were paid a minimum wage during training and afterwards promoted to full-time positions to earn a normal income.

This was easily learned and advanced work was soon taught of winding wire coils for electric motors and transformers.

He allowed his main factory to be used as a workshop and research facilities in which the blind could test these various unconventional manufacturing techniques.

[27] He wrote articles for Harper's Weekly under the title, "The Cheap John in Electrical Engineering.

"[3] In 1894 he joint authored a book titled "The Practical Management of Dynamos and Motors" with Professor Francis B.

[14] At the time of his death, he chaired the IEEE committee on "code of principles of professional conduct.