Electricity

Electricity, long an object of curiosity and wonder, became a major source of power and technological innovation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Daily life in the home, in the streets, and in shops and factories was directly affected by the new inventions of URBAN TRANSPORTATION, lighting, heating, and mechanization, all fueled by electricity, a source of power that was largely more efficient, cheaper, safer, and more versatile than the technologies it replaced. At the same time, the creation and utilization of electricity also could have negative effects on the environments of city and countryside. Hydroelectric power was relatively clean; and coal-generated electricity removed coal from the direct environment of home and factory, but it still polluted urban air and poisoned water and land in mining districts. Electrical mechanization of factories made workers more productive but also contributed to technological unemployment, and electric appliances lessened some forms of domestic work on the one hand and raised expectations for cleanliness on the other.

Electrification of urban transport was one of the earliest changes in the 20th-century United States. Substituting electrified wire or track for oil - and coal-driven engines, streetcar companies were able to realize profits from greater speed in transit, fewer repairs, and greater efficiency as well as the sale of surplus energy to private utility companies. The electric trolley transformed cities by making suburban areas more accessible, and many streetcar companies were able to cash in on the sale of real estate along its lines and operation of amusement parks at the end of its lines. Public lighting also changed the urban landscape.

The perfecting of an efficient alternating current (a. c.) motor in 1910 had made possible the creation of a range of electrically powered industrial machinery and domestic appliances. First to take advantage of the cheap cost, broad applicability, and increased availability of electrical power were manufacturers, who turned toward the electrification of machinery in most major consumer industries. Electrical machines that helped produce canned goods and

Charging the battery of a Detroit electric automobile (Library of Congress)

Meat products, cigarettes, wheat flour, and milk were all introduced in the period. On the whole, it was the versatility of electric engines that enabled their use in industry to expand that rapidly. Electric motors could drive a full range of small motors and large ones, link machines through belts and wires, and regulate the process through gauges and meters. For that reason, electric motors replaced coal - and oil-driven engines and thus increased speed and efficiency and lowered production costs. In 1905, motors powered by electricity accounted for less than 10 percent of industrial production. By 1930, they accounted for 80 percent of all manufacturing output. American consumption of electrical power increased as dramatically as its uses. Between 1899 and 1919, the use of electric power increased from 1.8 percent of industrial production in 1899 to 31.7 percent.

Within private households, electricity worked a revolution in domestic work. First, the proportion of residential homes wired for electricity increased dramatically in the first three decades of the century. In 1907, only 8 percent of households were electrified. By 1920, this figure had increased to 34.7 percent. By 1930, nearly 70 percent of all households were wired for electricity. Following on these developments, the invention and adoption of such appliances as electric fans, refrigerators, sewing machines, washing machines, toasters, mixers, and vacuums reshaped the labor of women who worked within the home and increased the amount of time spent on laundry, cooking, and cleaning. The availability of electricity also allowed for the wider adoption of radio for entertainment and news. Once limited to crystal sets, new radios ran on the same electricity as other household appliances. Standardization of wiring and equipment meant that electricity also was cheap.

The electrical industry grew over the course of the 1920s. Utility companies, which were increasingly subject to government regulation, continued to grow in revenue and assets, as they provided one of the most important sources of power in cities. While rural areas remained outside the power grid, rural electrification was only a decade away. The manufacture of electrical appliances, in particular, electric motors, lights, radios, and phonographs, became a major industrial sector in the 1920s, and its workers were among the better paid industrial workers. While still a mass production industry, the increased demand for new electrical goods guaranteed employment for its work force, at least while the economy remained relatively prosperous. Even with the advent of the Great Depression in 1929, electrical manufacturing and the electrification of the home and workplace continued, almost uninterrupted, at the pace of the 1920s.

See also economy; mass production; work, household.

Further reading: David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990); Ronald Schatz, The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983).