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For the Progress of Man: the TVA, Electric Power, and the Environment, 1939-1969 by Matthew D. Owen Dissertation Submitted to Th

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For the Progress of Man: the TVA, Electric Power, and the Environment, 1939-1969 by Matthew D. Owen Dissertation Submitted to Th For the Progress of Man: The TVA, Electric Power, and the Environment, 1939-1969 By Matthew D. Owen Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History December, 2014 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Gary Gerstle, Ph.D. Sarah E. Igo, Ph.D. Michael Bess, Ph.D. Ole Molvig, Ph.D. Dana D. Nelson, Ph.D. Copyright © 2014 by Matthew D. Owen All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the generous financial support of Vanderbilt University. The funding I received from the Graduate School and the History Department enabled me to conduct research in twenty-five collections housed in twelve different archives, libraries, and organizations throughout the southeast. I am also indebted to the Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National and International Affairs for providing me with a year- long service-free fellowship that allowed me to finish writing and revising my dissertation. I would like thank the faculty in the History Department for their guidance and support during my graduate studies. In particular, I would like to thank my advisor, Gary Gerstle, for nurturing my love of history and politics by allowing me to explore my own interests and for helping me along my odyssey with the Tennessee Valley Authority. His ability to ask probing questions and provide a much-needed nudge in the right direction has made me a better historian. Moreover, I owe my progress as writer to his willingness to offer constructive comments on an endless supply of seminar papers and dissertation drafts. I would like to thank Professor Sarah Igo for her kindness and support. Both her enthusiasm for my project and her sage advice have been inordinately helpful for me as I completed this dissertation. Her willingness to go out of her way to aid me and my fellow graduate students is greatly appreciated if seldom articulated. I am very grateful for my relationship with Professor Michael Bess, and I owe my introduction to environmental history to him. His suggestion that I read Richard White’s Organic Machine changed my career trajectory and opened an entirely new field of scholarship to me. I would like to thank Professor Ole Molvig for sharpening my understanding of the relationship between politics, culture, and technology. I would also like to thank Professor Dana Nelson in the iii English Department for her helpful comments on my dissertation and for allowing me to participate in her graduate seminar on resource regulation and the concept of the commons. I am very grateful for my friends and fellow graduate students in the History Department. Nick Villanueva, Adam Wilsman, Will Bishop, Erin Stone, Steve Harrison, Miriam Martin Erickson, Jessica Burch, Tizoc Chavez, and Erica Hayden have read far too many drafts of my work and provided camaraderie over the last six years. I am forever indebted to Frances Kolb and Ansley Quiros for their unwavering friendship and advice; I will miss our weekly lunches. I am also grateful for the help I received from the archivists and librarians with whom I have had the pleasure to work on this project. I would especially like to thank Maureen Hill at the National Archives in Atlanta, Georgia, for guiding me through the TVA’s collections. I would like to thank Jason Wright of the North Alabama Industrial Development Association and Leonard Leech of the Nashville Electric Service for opening their organizations’ files to me. Finally, I would like to thank my family. I am eternally grateful for the love of my mother and father and the values they instilled in me as a child. Their support for my endeavors has propelled my intellectual curiosity and helped me develop the self-confidence I needed to achieve my goals. My father, in particular, was a rock for me after my mother’s passing, performing the task of two parents with dignity and grace. He has always been my role model, and I hope only that he knows I love him. Amy, my wife and soul mate, words cannot fully express my love for you and the many ways in which you have made me a better person. Your emotional support has made this dissertation possible. You are and always will be my editor-in- chief, my sounding board, my one true love. I cannot thank you enough for sharing your life with me. And, for my Teddy, know that you brighten up my life every day. You are the one thing I am most proud of in the world. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii Chapter Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 Historiographical and Conceptual Frames .......................................................................... 6 Tennessee Valley Region .................................................................................................. 19 Chapters ............................................................................................................................ 21 For the Progress of Man .................................................................................................... 24 1. Protecting a Public Good: Conservation and the Origins of the TVA’s Power Program ..........25 Muscle Shoals, the Conservation Movement, and Hydroelectricity before 1920 ............ 29 Fits and Starts: the Ford Plan and George Norris ............................................................. 34 The TVA Act and the Balance between Public Power and Regional Planning ................ 35 The Uneasy Triumvirate: A. E. Morgan, H. A. Morgan, and David Lilienthal ................ 47 Echoes of Giant Power: Lilienthal’s Vision for the TVA and its Power Program ........... 53 A Countervailing Vision: Arthur Morgan and Planning................................................... 61 The Triumph of Lilienthal and Public Power ................................................................... 63 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 67 2. Building the Tools of Progress: The Technopolitics of Coal-Fired Expansion in the TVA’s Dynamic Decade ........................................................................................................................71 The Power Program Goes to War ..................................................................................... 76 The Johnsonville Steam Plant and the TVA’s New Coal-Fired Network ........................ 81 The TVA’s Consumption-Centric Ideology in the Postwar Era ....................................... 92 Kilowatts-For-Defense .................................................................................................... 105 Technology for the People .............................................................................................. 111 Conclusion – The Bond Revenue Act of 1959 ............................................................... 122 3. Better Living in The Electrical Center of America: Nashville Electric Service, Public Power, and Residential Consumption ......................................................................................126 From Private to Public .................................................................................................... 130 Low Rates: Power for All ............................................................................................... 141 Production, Transmission, and Wiring: Infrastructure at the Local Level ..................... 146 The Promotion of Progress ............................................................................................. 157 A Vision of Better Living ............................................................................................... 166 Nashville’s Progressive Electric Mindedness ................................................................. 173 The Limits of Better Living ............................................................................................ 180 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 182 v 4. Powering the Sunbelt: Electricity and Economic Development in the Tennessee Valley Region ......................................................................................................................................187 Cotton and Textiles in the Huntsville-Decatur Corridor ................................................. 190 Electric Power, World War II, and the Huntsville Arsenal ............................................ 194 Wolverine Tube: Electricity and Private Development .................................................. 197 Business Progressives, Distributors, and the Maturation of a Growth Strategy ............. 201 Rocket City U.S.A. ......................................................................................................... 209 Environment and the Energy-Intensive Industrial Economy .......................................... 217 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 227 5. The Balance of Power: Low Rates, Public Health, and Air Pollution
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