Electrifying!

From Shorpy.

June 1942. "Knox County, Tennessee. Electrification of farms made possible by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Mrs. Wiegel, farm wife, uses electric vacuum cleaner."

The dramatic transformation of daily rural life that came with electrification in the first half of the 20th century is difficult for us to grasp today.   The time and physical savings from the exhausting daily routine of laundry, cleaning, and keeping a fire going in order to cook made life much easier.

In The Path to Power, the first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, the author compares in detail the pre-electrification life in the Texas Hill Country to that after electrification.  It was LBJ, using all his guile, manipulative talents, and relentless energy, who was responsible for bringing power to the region and that accomplishment solidified his electoral support for decades. Read The Need For Gratitude for more on Caro and LBJ.

Electrification also plays a role in the Coen Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, when, at the climax of the film, a rural Mississippi Valley is flooded to form a reservoir for a hydroelectric dam.  The event provides Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) an opportunity to lecture his companions Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) on the virtues of electrification:

"Everything's gonna be put on electricity... Out with the old spiritual mumbo jumbo, the superstitions, and the backward ways. We're gonna see a brave new world where they run everybody a wire and hook us all up to a grid. Yes sir, a veritable age of reason, like the one they had in France."