Spending up to a million dollars a year through the 1920s, NELA secretly funded news agencies, sponsored research, held conferences, endowed scholarship funds, organized letterwriting campaigns, and even encouraged the rewriting of school textbooks. In 1925, for example, the chairman of the NELA PR committee, M. S. Sloan, of the Brooklyn Edison Company, addressed a group of employees at an internal meeting: “Schoolbooks in wide use all over the country have recently been analyzed. Many of them contain startling misstatements about public utilities. The pupil studying such material, hearing it discussed in the classroom, starts life with a warped and biased point of view regarding public utilities, and . . . is only too likely to remain unsympathetic and antagonistic through all future years.”
This must be what happened to me.
As another example, in Illinois, a release was regularly sent to the nine hundred newspapers in the state, about 150 of them dailies. Speakers’ bulletins were issued to employees, containing “ample material to any intelligent person for sound talks on each subject.”
NELA also acted as a booking agency for its propagandists. According to an internal memo, “A bureau is operated to find engagements, before clubs, civic associations and so on. More than 800 Illinois high schools are regularly furnished informative literature for classroom theme work, and debating society use.”
In the slump of the thirties, with sales of everything else falling, electrification of homes and businesses continued to grow. There are echoes of this now, with the multi-corporation propaganda campaigns promoting the creation of a smart grid in the middle of the worst economic downturn in twenty years.
In 1935 (the only year for which I could f nd figures), lightbulbs were still by far the biggest power user in the domestic setting. Of the 20 million households wired to the grid by then, 13.5 million used electricity for lighting and small appliances, such as radios, while only 5 million had a refrigerator, and about 1.5 million had electric stoves.
Since the early stages of the grid, GE had been working hard to increase their sales of products other than lightbulbs. Merely running a few lights per household did not require the huge central generators that GE was building, nor did it require the elaborate power grid that was being planned. Things could have proceeded very differently. Just as today the smart grid is hardly inevitable and not necessarily in the consumers’ interests, back then the grid was not the only logical conclusion and not the best solution for the market. “It could have been a much less centralized system, even balkanized,” David Nye told me. If the opposition had been better organized, or the pro-electricity lobby had not been so well funded, or if a man named Bruce Fairchild Barton had not come along when he did, the grid might never have formed.
powkey Portable Power Station 350W, 260Wh/70,000mAh Backup Lithium Battery, 110V Pure Sine Wave Power Bank with 2 AC Outlets, Portable Generator for Outdoors Camping Travel Hunting Emergency
$192.98 (as of April 24, 2024 13:58 GMT +01:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Amazon Visa
$23.00 (as of April 24, 2024 13:58 GMT +01:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
200W Portable Power Station, Powkey 120Wh/33,000mAh Power Bank with AC Outlet, 110V 6 Outputs Solar Generator External Battery Pack with LED Light for Home Use and Outdoor Camping
31% Off
Anker Power Bank Power Station 60,000mAh,Portable Outdoor Generator 87W with Smart Digital Display, Retractable Auto Lighting and SOS Mode, Home Backup(PowerCore Reserve 192Wh) for Travel, Camping
$149.99 (as of April 24, 2024 13:58 GMT +01:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
3 Responses
“Howes stressed the importance of the local community and the employment of domestic staff.”
Perhaps electrical power was seen as a savior by those householder who couldn’t afford domestic staff? The electrical appliances, and the power to operate had a cost, but one less than hired help. Point being that electrical power, and the appliances that consumed the power most likely weren’t a hard sell to those who could afford them. We today probably can’t appreciate the change electrical power repented in the daily live of many.
I see again a comment associating terrorist attack & decentralization. Large population centers will be the target of choice for terrorists When/if their localized power generation is destroyed. Power from the grid will be that return there lives back to normal. That should be the case if the conversation doesn’t turn from lambasting the grid to improving it. The citizens of japan have learned how important electrical power is to modern life. They experienced a situation where those off-grid, or on localized generation wouldn’t have fared any better than those on the grid
It makes no more sense to push electricity hundreds of miles using dangerously high voltages that is does to send water through hundreds of miles of pipeline. This is lunacy, sheer utter lunacy when solar and wind power can easily provide our electric power.
What about more efficient electric motors that can run our electric gadgets on 12 or 24 volt power? What about developing more efficient light sources (LED is still expensive, but it needn’t remain so)
What about all the overunity devices which are mysteriously pulled from YouTube for “Terms of Use Violations”?
The best defense against terrorist attacks on our electric power distribution is DECENTRALIZATION.
If the power I pay for is so good, why do my electronic sewing and knitting machines, my computer, and my TV all require not just surge suppressors, but power cleaning surge suppressors to smooth out the spikes and optimize their functioning?
There is a hidden agenda which we are being told doesn’t exist. Our public fool systems are teaching our children to not ask questions. Wake up!
Wow! Men, that was some short article of just 9 pages :) . Is appreciated. Great Info. Thank you