Circus Electrique download the new version

In demonstrations and marketing materials, women were inundated with scientific information about how electricity would maintain the health and safety of the family, improve the cooking experience, and would save time on household chores. While their job was to inform consumers and sell the idea of an all-electric lifestyle, they took the concerns of farm households to heart, and made sure that demonstrations were specifically addressing the issues that farm women cared about. What the students found was that home economists, like Lousian Mamer, acted as intermediaries between farm women and the institution of the REA. Mamer Rural Electrification Administration Papers, Archives Center, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the Story+ team answered the questions: What was the role of women in the EFE roadshow? How were women targeted in marketing materials? And what were the assumptions that the REA made about women on the farm? Using archival materials from the Louisan E. Mamer Rural Electrification Administration Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution Without the appliances to use electricity peoples are not able to benefit from them, nor are utility companies able to recoup costs and maintain the quality of the system.

This is a struggle today in many areas of the world where people are being electrified for the first time – whether through big grid extension projects or through new mini-grids.

Without using the electricity, people weren’t able to benefit from the increases in well-being and productivity that electricity services can provide, and the rural cooperatives were unable to pay back their loans. They didn’t have any equipment or appliances to use it – many strung electric lights in their homes and called it a day. The trouble was that initial capital costs were high and rural farmers had never experienced electricity before. In order to bring light to the countryside, the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was created to organize farmers, give loans to build new cooperative utilities, and provide information about electricity and its uses. This was seen as a huge problem – the productivity and quality of life that electricity could bring was bypassing the American farmer.

Circus Electrique download the new version