Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Historical Context of Rural Electrification
1. The Standard Narrative and Its Defects
2. Unattractive Economics in the Rural Electricity Market
3. Business Attitudes toward Farmers in the 1920s
4. The Lure and Lore of Rural Electrification
5. Farmers on Their Own
Part II. Alignment of Rural Stakeholders
6. Utility Interest in Rural Electrification Awakens
7. The Unexpected Public Relations Value of Rural Electrification
8. The Industry Organizes the CREA
9. State Committees Work to Resolve Uncertainties
10. Regulation and the Extension of Lines to Rural Areas
11. Momentum in the Rural Electrification Subsystem
Part III. Growth of Rural Electrification Efforts in the 1930s
12. Government Innovations in the Rural Electrification Subsystem
13. Competition and Private Utilities in the REA Era
Conclusion
Notes
Index
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Promotional Information

The untold story of the power industry's efforts to electrify growing numbers of farms in the years before the creation of Depression-era government programs.

About the Author

Richard F. Hirsh is a professor of history at Virginia Tech. He is the author of Glimpsing an Invisible Universe: The Emergence of X-ray Astronomy; Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry; and Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System.