I remember one of my last conversations with one of my grandmothers, she said "I lived during a great time". "I witnessed the advent of electricity, telephone and radio coming into her home." She added "Then television, and all the modern appliances." She died in the late 70s, missing cable, computers, and the internet. But she was amazed about the changes in her lifetime!
My grandfather, born in 92, went around the world with Roosevelt's great white fleet as a 16 year old sailor. He saw electricity, telephone, cars, planes Xrays, pennicillian frozen food ,radio, TV, 747s and the moon landing. Died dec, 71. His eldest daughter was a captain in the army in WWII. Company commander of a clerical unit in Germany ---WACs.
That’s unfortunate that your grandparents never got to experience computers and the Internet. Your grandfathers would have probably really enjoyed P0rnHub. I could see them being fans of Riley Reid because she’s a sweetheart.
It’s a shame that your grandfathers never got to experience the Internet because they would have loved Xhamster. I know that they would have been fans of Riley Reid because she’s beautiful.
Nicely done video , when I was a kid in NYC our apartment still had gas lighting fixtures on the walls but we had electricity in the 30's and didn't use those gas fixtures. Thankyou for a splendid video.
Gas lights might not have been ideal, but they were undoubtedly better than these new compact fluorescent and LED light bulbs we have now for home use that produce ugly, pure white light like what is seen in convenience stores and office buildings. Cool story! 👏🏻🕺🏻
Excellent overview of the history of electrification of the US! Radio was an amazing invention, and transformed America. People were amazed that they could here voices from distant cities so, this became an intense interest and everyone desired to have a radio but, they were too expensive. The first US broadcast station went on the air in 1920. All radios made at that time ran off batteries (a constant headache) until 1926, when the first house powered radios began appearing. My mother grew up in the 1930's in the South during the throws of the Great Depression. The house she lived in was wired for electricity but, her family couldn't afford it so, they used kerosene lighting.
Rural communities were not considered unprofitable. That wasn't the problem. The problem was infrastructure. Put a line down a city street and this would connect to maybe 60 houses, 30 per street side. A city street on average is 1/8th of a mile or an average of 660 feet. You might need 2-3 poles to hold the wire up. A rural area might have an average of 1 home every 1/4 mile or more. It simply wasn't viable. It was not until the government put up the money that rural areas got electricity. The last of the large rural areas to get electricity was in the 1950s.
The government still provides that subsidy. We had to pay to extend the power on our road to our house and much of it was subsidized. The new name for REA is RUS. Where I live the population has grown from about 18,000 in 1980 to 117,000 now so we are still putting in a lot of electrical infrastructure.
I have just been learning today about this topic, so I was honestly surprised to see a video released just a couple hours ago on the topic! I am wondering especially about the history of PUBLIC electric utilities and what drove the shift toward public vs private infrastructure.
Hi, new subscriber here, you content and narration is very good. Could I suggest to do away with the blurry image on the sides just make it black I can live with 4:3
During the early twentieth century, thee were farm electrical systems with their own generating, often from windmills or small gasoline generators. These only provided limited current for lighting and a few low wattage appliances. These wee replaced when the coming with REA starting in the late 1930s.
There's a silent film on TH-cam about the Delco Light plant. They had an engine driven generator that would automatically start when the voltage got too low and stop when the lead acid batteries were full. I don't know how they even did that, maybe a voltage sensing relay. The whole system was 32 volts and required special 32 volt incandescent bulbs and electric motors. Radios came a bit later and required vibrators, a primitive switch mode power supply that could boost the anode voltage up to 67 or 90 volts. Farm stores must have had their own selection of 32 volt appliances. There were also battery backed windmill systems with their own generator regulator and cutout relays, like on early car genrator regulator systems.
7:57 It says 920 at the top of the center billboard. What does that mean? Is it the date? The time? What year is this from? Just to the left there is a sign for Fisk Tires. I think it went out of business in the early 30s. That would date this in the early thirties at the latest. So is the 920 a clock or a date? A date could be manually done selectively lighting up bulbs once a day. But the time would have to be done automatically. If it was the time, presumably there was a mechanical device for changing the illumination pattern every minute. If so, do you know what it is called?
Electricity was generated with steam or in some cases, water power (dams). Steam is every bit as effective at powering a factory as electricity. Most factories, even when they went electric kept all the existing machinery. In the 19th and early 20th century, most factories had an outdoor water wheel or steam driven wheel that turned a central shaft inside the factory which in turn spun 2ndary and tertiary shafts. Belts were run from the tertiary shafts to the individual machines. They powered everything from saws to lathes. All this infrastructure added up to millions of Dollars. So rather than replace all of the machines, they simply replaced the prime mover (the waterwheel or steam generator) by driving it with electricity instead of steam. Given the 2 extra conversions (from steam to electricity and then back to kinetic), it was more inefficient than just running the steam generator. For a large factory, it was even more expensive to get electrified than to keep turning the central shaft with locally generated steam. Though pretty rare, there are still factories today powered in this way. Though they are often very small workshops who rely on tourism as much as production. In England, there is at least one textile mill that is enormous that is powered by a waterwheel and all the machinery inside are mechanical belt driven devices. It's maintained for historic purposes and is even run occasionally. There are videos of it on youtube.
Talk about taking something for granted, 1910 my great grandparents who I knew and heard many stories from never really related the stories of electricity. The did talk about horses and outhouses. I was born in 1962 and never knew any thing but electricity.
I remember one of my last conversations with one of my grandmothers, she said "I lived during a great time". "I witnessed the advent of electricity, telephone and radio coming into her home." She added "Then television, and all the modern appliances." She died in the late 70s, missing cable, computers, and the internet. But she was amazed about the changes in her lifetime!
My grandfather, born in 92, went around the world with Roosevelt's great white fleet as a 16 year old sailor. He saw electricity, telephone, cars, planes Xrays, pennicillian frozen food ,radio, TV, 747s and the moon landing. Died dec, 71. His eldest daughter was a captain in the army in WWII. Company commander of a clerical unit in Germany ---WACs.
That’s unfortunate that your grandparents never got to experience computers and the Internet. Your grandfathers would have probably really enjoyed P0rnHub. I could see them being fans of Riley Reid because she’s a sweetheart.
It’s a shame that your grandfathers never got to experience the Internet because they would have loved Xhamster. I know that they would have been fans of Riley Reid because she’s beautiful.
Nicely done video , when I was a kid in NYC our apartment still had gas lighting fixtures on the walls but we had electricity in the 30's and didn't use those gas fixtures. Thankyou for a splendid video.
Gas lights might not have been ideal, but they were undoubtedly better than these new compact fluorescent and LED light bulbs we have now for home use that produce ugly, pure white light like what is seen in convenience stores and office buildings. Cool story! 👏🏻🕺🏻
If that super annoying tune wouldn't have been playing in so loudly the background I would have watched the whole video.
Excellent overview of the history of electrification of the US!
Radio was an amazing invention, and transformed America. People were amazed that they could here voices from distant cities so, this became an intense interest and everyone desired to have a radio but, they were too expensive. The first US broadcast station went on the air in 1920. All radios made at that time ran off batteries (a constant headache) until 1926, when the first house powered radios began appearing.
My mother grew up in the 1930's in the South during the throws of the Great Depression. The house she lived in was wired for electricity but, her family couldn't afford it so, they used kerosene lighting.
Rural communities were not considered unprofitable. That wasn't the problem. The problem was infrastructure. Put a line down a city street and this would connect to maybe 60 houses, 30 per street side. A city street on average is 1/8th of a mile or an average of 660 feet. You might need 2-3 poles to hold the wire up. A rural area might have an average of 1 home every 1/4 mile or more. It simply wasn't viable. It was not until the government put up the money that rural areas got electricity. The last of the large rural areas to get electricity was in the 1950s.
The government still provides that subsidy. We had to pay to extend the power on our road to our house and much of it was subsidized. The new name for REA is RUS. Where I live the population has grown from about 18,000 in 1980 to 117,000 now so we are still putting in a lot of electrical infrastructure.
8:13 That's Grace Church, completed in 1846, still standing at the corner of Broadway and E. 10th St in Manhattan.
I have just been learning today about this topic, so I was honestly surprised to see a video released just a couple hours ago on the topic! I am wondering especially about the history of PUBLIC electric utilities and what drove the shift toward public vs private infrastructure.
Hi, new subscriber here, you content and narration is very good. Could I suggest to do away with the blurry image on the sides just make it black I can live with 4:3
During the early twentieth century, thee were farm electrical systems with their own generating, often from windmills or small gasoline generators. These only provided limited current for lighting and a few low wattage appliances. These wee replaced when the coming with REA starting in the late 1930s.
There's a silent film on TH-cam about the Delco Light plant. They had an engine driven generator that would automatically start when the voltage got too low and stop when the lead acid batteries were full. I don't know how they even did that, maybe a voltage sensing relay. The whole system was 32 volts and required special 32 volt incandescent bulbs and electric motors. Radios came a bit later and required vibrators, a primitive switch mode power supply that could boost the anode voltage up to 67 or 90 volts. Farm stores must have had their own selection of 32 volt appliances. There were also battery backed windmill systems with their own generator regulator and cutout relays, like on early car genrator regulator systems.
So glad to hear a human voice! But, please ditch the repetetive ragtime.
Now it's NYC govt that's a fixture of gas-lighting. 😅
You have a beautiful voice! 👏🏻🍻🕺🏻
7:57 It says 920 at the top of the center billboard. What does that mean? Is it the date? The time? What year is this from?
Just to the left there is a sign for Fisk Tires. I think it went out of business in the early 30s. That would date this in the early thirties at the latest.
So is the 920 a clock or a date? A date could be manually done selectively lighting up bulbs once a day. But the time would have to be done automatically. If it was the time, presumably there was a mechanical device for changing the illumination pattern every minute. If so, do you know what it is called?
I would say it's the time.... relay controlled light bulbs from normal analog clock. Easy to do in the 1920's
@@andrewlindh5047 at 8:12 I see old growth Ivy on a building that is probably “new” 🧐
Electricity was generated with steam or in some cases, water power (dams). Steam is every bit as effective at powering a factory as electricity. Most factories, even when they went electric kept all the existing machinery.
In the 19th and early 20th century, most factories had an outdoor water wheel or steam driven wheel that turned a central shaft inside the factory which in turn spun 2ndary and tertiary shafts. Belts were run from the tertiary shafts to the individual machines. They powered everything from saws to lathes. All this infrastructure added up to millions of Dollars. So rather than replace all of the machines, they simply replaced the prime mover (the waterwheel or steam generator) by driving it with electricity instead of steam. Given the 2 extra conversions (from steam to electricity and then back to kinetic), it was more inefficient than just running the steam generator. For a large factory, it was even more expensive to get electrified than to keep turning the central shaft with locally generated steam.
Though pretty rare, there are still factories today powered in this way. Though they are often very small workshops who rely on tourism as much as production. In England, there is at least one textile mill that is enormous that is powered by a waterwheel and all the machinery inside are mechanical belt driven devices. It's maintained for historic purposes and is even run occasionally. There are videos of it on youtube.
Has anyone noticed that most of the people in this video are in good physical shape? Maybe the lack of computers, cell phones, video games, etc.
100k electric incandescent lights. Can you imagine the heat that came off of these displays?
What’s with the repetitive music, proper gash. 2/10, try harder.
Talk about taking something for granted, 1910 my great grandparents who I knew and heard many stories from never really related the stories of electricity. The did talk about horses and outhouses.
I was born in 1962 and never knew any thing but electricity.
Great video. 1-26-25 SU