Lighting up the Darkness: Electrification in Ohio, 1879-1945
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
LIGHTING UP THE DARKNESS: ELECTRIFICATION IN OHIO, 1879-1945 Kevin L. Moore A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts May 2013 Committee: Dr. Walter E. Grunden, Advisor Dr. Rebecca Mancuso © 2013 Kevin L. Moore All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Dr. Walter E. Grunden, Advisor This thesis argues that electrification in Ohio, which spread from cities to the countryside, required a strong impetus from the Federal Government to reach its ultimate fulfillment. The author attempts to address a lacuna in the scholarship of electrification by providing an original work on the history of electrification in Ohio. This thesis makes use of a "case study” approach to examine the topic in a three-stage analytical framework: urban electrification in Cleveland to address the changes in public perception regarding power and the resulting municipal reform; the transition of Toledo's interurban railways from primarily traction companies to electrical power companies to illustrate the expansion of electrical access beyond the municipality making the issue a state concern; and restriction of Ohio’s utility holding companies and the electrification of Miami and Shelby Counties by the Rural Electrification Administration to examine how firm federal policies succeeded where state and local intervention could not. The case is made here using a synthesis of existing literature on electrification and archival research. The present work concludes that the earliest attempts to expand electrification were made by private enterprise, but private efforts were most successful in cities where higher population densities guaranteed higher profits. Government actions on the part of municipal and state institutions tried to further electrification beyond the areas serviced by private utilities, but they lacked the resources and authority of the federal government. iv To my mother, my wife, and my daughter v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank the faculty of the Bowling Green State University History Department for their guidance and support, especially my committee members, Dr. Walter E. Grunden and Dr. Rebecca Mancuso. I also want to acknowledge the assistance of the staff at the Center for Archival Collections at BGSU, Jennifer Fording, History Librarian at the Harris-Elmore Public Library, and the staff at the Western Reserve Historical Society Library at Case Western Reserve University. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER I. POWERING A CITY: ELECTRIFICATION, CORPORATISM, AND PROGRESSIVISM IN CLEVELAND, 1879-1909 .............................................................. 19 Bright Beginnings ...................................................................................................... 20 Electricity in Motion .................................................................................................. 28 “Shocking” Profits ..................................................................................................... 32 The Mayor and Municipal Ownership ....................................................................... 39 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 48 CHAPTER II. EXPANDED REACH WITH THE INTERURBANS: ELECTRICITY ENTERS SMALL TOWN, OHIO AND STATE POLITICS, 1900-1930 ............................................ 50 The Electric Road ...................................................................................................... 52 The Home of Tomorrow ............................................................................................ 62 Power for the People .................................................................................................. 65 Still in the Dark .......................................................................................................... 72 CHAPTER III. AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ENTERS THE POWER MARKET AND ELECTRIFIES THE COUNTRYSIDE, 1933-1945 .......... 78 Emergence of the Power Trust ................................................................................... 80 Power on Hold ........................................................................................................... 83 Breaking the Power Trust .......................................................................................... 89 Uncle Sam: Power Provider ....................................................................................... 94 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 108 vii BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 116 1 INTRODUCTION Electricity is the bedrock of modernity. Its cheap and reliable lighting broke the human experience from the confines of the solar day. The energy stored within it powered industry and began to minimize the amount of time the masses had to dedicate to labor. Its use in locomotion ushered in the first instances of urban sprawl and provided the first stable connection between suburbs and cities. It allowed for the separation of power consumer and power generator, greatly reducing the pollution present in population centers. Electrical access allowed for the first medium of instantaneous mass communication via the radio. Contemporaries of the first ventures into electrification heaped onto the new technology all of their expectations for an advanced and utopian world, and while utopia is certainly still wanting, the nearly century and a half since electrification began has seen unprecedented advancements. Philip F. Schewe writes in The Grid: A Journey through the Heart of Our Electrified World, "Fairly, we could argue that much of what we call modernity is fundamentally electrical in nature or at least dependent in a fundamental way on the electrical grid."1 To illustrate, Schewe describes what happens to our electrified world when the power is turned off. Late in the summer of 2003, a hiccup in an Ohio power plant, caused by poorly maintained tree growth and an overly interconnected electrical grid with too few failsafe measures, resulted in a massive blackout in several parts of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Automatic teller machines (ATM) became inaccessible cash vaults. Gasoline at service stations stayed in the ground. Air conditioners quit running on what happened to be one of the hottest days of the year causing tens of thousands to vacate their apartments. Cities in the affected areas, especially New York City, saw their streets clogged with pedestrians. This did not matter, however, because 1 Philip F. Schewe, The Grid: A Journey through the Heart of Our Electrified World (Washington: J. Henry Press, 2007), 13. 2 without functioning traffic lights the city’s traffic flow screeched to a halt anyway. Hundreds were trapped in stopped elevators, and the elderly and disabled stuck on the upper floors of their high-rise apartments became a concern for emergency services. With no refrigeration on a hot day, food quickly spoiled and the restaurant industry lost millions of dollars worth of inventory. Confusion reigned supreme over both the trapped and the evacuated. News about the nature of the crisis could only be delivered via word of mouth as radio, television, the Internet and cellular communication was disabled. In the new post-9/11 world, rumors of a terrorist attack naturally spread quickly through the crowds. In many areas, water treatment stations stopped pumping fresh water, causing faucets to run dry and, in Cleveland, the wastewater treatment plant shut down sending millions of gallons of human waste into Lake Erie.2 The crisis even affected international relations as the U.S. initially blamed Canada for the blackout. This catastrophic real-life scenario would seem to indicate that the girdle of civilization itself, especially in densely populated urban centers, has been transferred onto the back of the electrical grid. The might of Atlas has been usurped by microscopic electrons moving through current. This transition has not gone unnoticed. In 2004, Congress commissioned a panel of military and scientific experts to assess the nation’s dependence on electrical systems and their vulnerability to an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) resulting from the detonation of a high-altitude nuclear weapon by a foreign power or terrorist organization. The EMP Commission reported: “Depending on the specific characteristics of the attacks, unprecedented cascading failures of our major infrastructures could result. In that event, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our Nation. The primary avenues for catastrophic damage to the Nation are through our electric power infrastructure and thence into our telecommunications, energy, and other infrastructures. These, in turn, can seriously impact other important aspects of our Nation’s life, including the financial system; means of getting food, water, and 2 Schewe, The Grid, 11-13. 3 medical care to the citizenry; trade; and production of goods and services. The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent on the recovery of others. The longer the