rural electrification

American Agriculture History Minute: Vision for Rural Electrification

Dan American Agriculture History Minute, Biofuels/Energy, This Land of Ours

rural electrification
Harmony Community, Putnam County, Georgia. This housewife is enthusiastic about REA, and with good reason. Her home has just been electrified. See the two ice-boxes in this kitchen – the old vs. the new (between 28 May 1941 and 1 June 1941).
Irving Rusinow, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mark Oppold presents an American Agriculture History Minute, explains that the story of rural electrification began during the 1932 presidential campaign when Democratic nominee Franklin Roosevelt toured the South. During this tour, Roosevelt was deeply affected by witnessing the widespread poverty and sanitation issues in rural areas.

American Agriculture History Minute: Vision for Rural Electrification

Mark describes how Roosevelt believed that bringing electricity to rural areas would be transformative. The potential benefits included enabling running water in homes and powering refrigerators for food preservation, though Roosevelt emphasized the importance of making this power affordable.

Mark concludes by noting that Roosevelt won the election decisively, and rural electrification became an integral part of his New Deal program.

That’s today’s American Agriculture History Minute. I’m Mark Oppold. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.