Great Projects: The Building of America : Electric Nation (2002)
Share on
Synopsis
This installment illuminates the process by which "America got wired," says narrator Stacy Keach. The first wirer, of course, was Thomas Edison. He invented the lightbulb in 1879, then went about figuring out how to distribute electricity (and build his business). One of his lieutenants, Samuel Insull, went to Chicago, and figured out ways to make electricity "something you couldn't do without," says University of Alabama historian Forrest McDonald. And the Tennessee Valley Authority's David Lilienthal wired the rural South. FDR called the TVA "the wildest experiment ever conducted by a government." Part 2 of four.