Tag: Henry Wallace
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TVA part 1 of 4
I did a tribute to WPA last year. The Tennessee Valley Authority was another of the New Deal’s giant perpetual improvements to America. TVA and the smaller Bonneville Power Administration continue even now as the sole illustrations of government working like a business. Both still make a profit from selling electricity. They create real value…
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TVA, part 2 of 4
I’ve been putting together some digital replicas of TVA’s model city at Norris, obviously not trying to include the whole thing! Here’s the top view of the street plan with a scattering of houses. The original was somewhat denser, but nowhere near ‘walkable’. Norris was named for Senator George Norris, who had been pushing the…
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TVA, part 3 of 4
Some of the TVA house designs were intended for mass production, not local culture. This was called the Demountable house. In modern terms it would be Modular. The basic section was made in a factory and shipped out by railcar for quick non-permanent use. The flat roof wouldn’t have lasted long in rainy and snowy…
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TVA, part 4 of 4
The book on TVA architecture featured a picture and plan of a model gas station. The building itself was photographed but I think the rest of the plan was skipped. I went ahead and tributed the whole thing. The station was in the median of a boulevard, with entrances from both lanes. Floor plan of…
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Anderson and Foy
A Redditor in Europe is complaining that universities are becoming more like secondary schools. Previously the Euro tradition put all the weight on the test. If you aced the final test it didn’t matter whether you attended the lectures. Now they’re requiring attendance at every class. I don’t know if his complaint is valid, but…
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Well, I can build that myself!
More from the REA news in 1940. The New Deal was all about DECENTRALIZING power. Henry Wallace hammered on the theme endlessly, and agencies like WPA and REA and TVA were serious about letting local coops and companies determine their own way of using the federal funding. Every aspect of their structure and rhetoric was…
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Formerly common knowledge
At its height the Rural Electrification Admin published a monthly magazine for its coops and members. Like any good newspaper, the magazine included human interest features along with news about progress and problems in technology and management. = = = = = START QUOTE: Mr. Moulton’s cows are electrically cleaned every day with a resulting…
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Wincharger addendum
A few months ago I featured Zenith’s Wincharger wind generator systems, part of the farm electrification movement of the New Deal. Noticed this ad in a 1947 broadcast trade journal: The Wincharger factory was already making short towers for the generators. After most farms were hooked up to the grid, Zenith switched to tall towers…
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Might be halfway interesting
Trying to find something positive… Manchin’s retirement and potential candidacy is interesting. He’s unquestionably an old-fashioned industrial Democrat, generally on the side of the worker. He doesn’t smell like an Agent Provocateur or a Pied Piper. He has a little bit of Henry Wallace spirit.
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Status all the way
Spokane had a mayoral “election” yesterday. The results seem to give a majority, not a landslide, to Lisa Brown (D) over Nadine Woodward (R). Brown will continue ruining the city, with a D label instead of an R label. There might be some differences in flavor on the question of homeless camps, but otherwise no…
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Henry would be proud
And I mean both Henry Ford and Henry Wallace. UAW is the good news in today’s mess. Through careful and clever analog strategy, they achieved tremendous victories against all of the Big Three. Now the non-union carmakers are starting to feel the pressure, raising their own starting wages to remain competitive. When corporations compete to…
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Sounds like Henry Wallace
Kucinich is the only top-level politician who refuses to converge to Deepstate. He got swayed by RFK and joined as campaign manager. When RFK showed his true Deepstate colors, Kucinich immediately got the hell out. That’s the mark of maturity. Know when to hold em, fold em, walk away. RFK then replaced Kucinich with a…
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Newtonian politics
The current spate of canceling academics for holding balanced and objective views is being compared to McCarthyism. In a general sense this is valid but it misses the important TIMELINE of the HUAC/McCarthy period. HUAC started its inquisition in 1947. ALL of Congress was on the same side. It wasn’t Joe McCarthy’s “indecency” vs the…
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Two main switches
From 1920 to 1945 both parties were isolationist and nationalist. Now both parties are aggressive NAZI warmongers. Deepstate worked assiduously to convert both parties. Truman was the switch point for D. Henry Wallace told us exactly how it happened. In ’48 Nixon, the Kennedy brothers, and Reagan were all working together in HUAC, the training…
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Historical first
For the first time in history, a famous star agrees with me about an important issue!
Polistra's Mill 