Rural Electrification
Perry Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In 1936 seventy-five percent of Pennsylvania farms had no electric service. During the next five years, with Federal support, 14 consumer-owned cooperatives were formed in this State. Serving users in seven counties of western Pennsylvania...
The Story
By the mid-1930s, electricity had transformed America's cities while most of the countryside still lit its homes with kerosene lamps — in Pennsylvania, three of every four farms had no power at all. This marker recalls how, under the New Deal's push for rural electrification, farmers across western Pennsylvania banded together into consumer-owned cooperatives, pooling federal loans to string wire down the back roads the private utilities had judged unprofitable to serve. Within just five years, fourteen such co-ops had brought light, refrigeration, and electric machinery to families across seven counties.
Why it matters
Rural electrification was one of the New Deal's quietest revolutions, closing the gap between urban and country life and reshaping the American farm household in a single generation. The cooperatives it created remain community-owned to this day, a lasting model of citizens solving together what neither markets nor local government would.
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Related events
- · Rural Electrification Administration (New Deal)
Themes & tags
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