Tag: Henry Wallace
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All themes at once!
Just for fun, here’s a news item that fits all of my current themes at the same time. = = = = = START QUOTE: A northern Minnesota electric cooperative is going after a couple for their alleged plot to siphon hundreds of thousands dollars’ worth of energy for two bitcoin farms. The civil suit…
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REA was Stroybank
Was the New Deal “Soviet”? Yes, in the best sense of the word. FDR tried to adopt parts of the Soviet system because suffering Americans recognized that the Soviet system worked better than ours. The best way to prevent a revolution is to treat the radicals as a corrective signal. Pull the system in the…
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70 years in reverse 2
Continued from previous. The New Deal had three purposes: 1. Smash Wall Street. 2. Restore Main Street. 3. Restore farms. Henry Wallace was in charge of restoring farms, and the TVA and REA worked on the same goal. REA news in 1936 quoted a speech by the head of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau….. =…
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One little difference
In 1948 Chevy produced a film trying to ease the impatience of customers who were feeling the end result of postwar adjustments. It explains all the economic and material factors involved in restarting production after a NECESSARY WAR. The movie is objective and SYMPATHETIC. Our present situation is similar except that we are feeling the…
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Human centered enviro
Senator Norris, the godfather of TVA, was also a strong patron of rural electrification and cooperatives. Here’s part of a letter he wrote to an REA coop. = = = = = START NORRIS: One of the greatest things, it seems to me, that has ever been done for the happiness and welfare of the…
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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…
Polistra's Mill 