Rural Electrification

• The problem:

  • 1930: Only 10% farms (1% in poorest areas) had electricity

  (USA = enormous, many remote farms)

  • Farming families had no access to consumer goods
  • Difficult to modernise

  e.g. No electric brooders for chicks
• The Solution:

  
  

  Work during the First New Deal...

  • The TVA - built dams to generate electricity + lent money to cooperatives to lay power cables
  • EHFA (Electric Home + Farm Authority) - help buy electric products

  
  

  Work during the Second New Deal...

  • Expansion - 1935 Rural Electrification Administration (REA) continued good work.
• The Outcome:

  • 1941: 35% of farms had electricity
  • 417 cooperatives helped
  • 1935: The amount of farms with electricity increased to 40%

  Was a success - boosted demand for electricity.

  • There were spite lines (created by some greedy utility companies)