Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 Book

A. Synopsis: This book traces the development of electrification in the US from 1880 to 1940. Nye focuses on five distinct stages; street and commercial lighting (1880s), streetcars (1888), factories (middle 1890s), domestic (after 1910), and farms (after 1935). Throughout these stages Nye is concerned with the general publics conception of the meaning of electrification (ex. A belief in a utopian future). "Electrifying" was both a process and an attribute. America understood the electricity as both. Some general trends include strengthening cultural links to the city (trolleys, radio), the rise of the suburbs (transportation), centralized communal services were rejected in favor of personal control with electrical appliances, electrification increased factory production and changed building design
B. What was electricity?
1. Despite its ubiquity it defied easy definition
2. groups that related differently to electricity
a) Genteel intellectuals: These were mostly antimodernists who viewed electrification as a means of subjection and destruction (electricity as social power)
b) Technical elite: Viewed electricity as an instrument of social reform (the engineers), physicians using electricity (x-rays) to improve health
c) General public: They embraced electricity as an item of consumption. They were encouraged by popular fiction (Tom Swift). Speech became filled with connections of the human body to electricity (ex. Vacation to recharge batteries, polar opposite, go out like a light)
d) Businessmen: Saw electricity as a way to make money. Giant corporations formed like GE and Westinghouse.
C. Examples of how electrification changed peoples lives--Middletown (Muncie Indiana)
1. 10% of the homes were electrified in 1910, 70% in 1930.
2. Libraries loaned more books as a result, electrical appliance sales soared after WWI
3. The standard of cleanliness increased because more people took baths (easier hot water), more clothes were washed, washing dishes was easier
4. Commercial radio began in the 1920s. This linked Muncie to a national popular culture.
D. Street and commercial lighting (1880s)
1. Electric lighting began with theater marquees, shop windows and street lights
2. World fairs became show places for this new technology.
a) In 1894 the Chicago World's Fair had more lights than all the rest of the country
b) The World's Fair also had the first electrical transportation (sidewalks, trolleys, elevators)
3. One problem was the tangle of wires and unsightly poles, advertising signs began to encroach on the streets
4. City lighting became a form of cultural expression that could enhance natural effects (Niagara Falls). Broadway became the Great White Way.
E. Streetcars (1888)
1. The interurban streetcar established new economic and cultural linkages between city and country (a vehicle of urban change)
2. Most of the street railways were built as private (not public) ventures on old horsecar lines
3. The growth of streetcars stimulated a wide range of industries as more people could come to the stores
4. This also stimulated class conflict as only the MC and UC could afford the fairs and move out of the city
5. The roles of women were transformed. The streetcar provided choices for the woman to make and provided employment possibilities
6. Rural effects were even greater than urban effects as small towns lost business to the larger cities
7. Trolley parks emerged on the outskirts of the city. Ex. Coney Island where streetcars were transformed into roller coasters
F. Factories (middle 1890s)
1. No institution was in more rapid transition in the 1890s than the factory
2. The light brought productivity and safety (over the gas light), yet it also allowed for round the clock shifts
3. Electrical power made possible entirely new factory forms (previously waterpower dictated the size and location of the factory)
4. How did workers respond to the new machines in the factories? There were new perils for the workers to adjust to (electrification). High turnover rate. Welfare Capitalism emerges to offset worker dissatisfaction (by returning some of the profit)
G. Domestic electrification (after 1910)
1. By 1920 most homes were wired
2. The new electrical households were billed as tools to personal freedom
3. The costs of building these new homes (electricity and plumbing) caused the builders to construct simpler homes (no more single purpose rooms like sewing, or foyer)
4. Electrical devices created more work for mother. Example, for a time all washing was done by commercial laundries. The electric washing machine brought this work back to the home.
H. Farms, rural electrification (after 1935)
1. Agriculture was the last major US sector to be electrified
2. Rural electrification in America lagged behind European nations because it threatened traditional values (the moral, natural farm)
3. The belief was that with electrification, the farm would lose its natural cycles
4. During the 1930s rural electrification became a social program
a) This offset the high cost factor of rural electrification
b) TVA (1933) and REA (got transmission lines to the farms in 1935) brought the government into competition with the electrical industry
5. What was the human meaning to TVA and REA?
a) Rural schools received electricity for the first time
b) Electrical appliances increased productivity on the farm. Lighting increased hours of work.