What many young people today do not realize that there was life before "electricity". Yes, indeed there was. In many areas today people are living exactly they way they did back then.
Benjamin Franklin's discoveries resulted from his investigations of electricity.
Franklin proposed that "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity were not
different types of "electrical fluid" (as electricity was called then), but the same electrical fluid under different pressures. He was the first to label them as positive and negative respectively, and he was the first to discover the principle of conservation of charge. These electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. (resource)
Thomas Edison was an inventor of major technology. Some of the products he developed included the telegraph, telephone,
phonograph, electric light bulb, alkaline storage batteries and
Kinetograph (a camera for motion pictures). (resource)
With these two men who investigated their theories, we have a world that uses electricity to power many things today.
Another vast difference is that most rural areas didn’t have
electricity in the 1930s. In fact, many areas were not electrified until
the mid-1950s. As such, country folks did much of their work by hand,
grew and preserved their own food, and relied heavily on horsepower and
each other. Their skills were not limited to one trade. On any given
day, a farmer could find himself as a carpenter, veterinarian, plumber
and mechanic – using mainly human-powered tools.
When electricity, inexpensive fuel and motorized equipment reached
everyone, those old treadle sewing machines, galvanized wash tubs,
hand-operated push mowers, kerosene lamps, hand pumps and all manner of
non-electric tools and appliances were tossed in the city dump.
Horse-drawn farm equipment was left to rust behind barns or, worse yet,
hauled to the front yard to be adorned with petunias. (Read more)
Granted many cannot have a horse in their front yard but what can a person change in their own living space that would not use electricity? When power goes out, what do you do to get by?
Find small ways to get unplugged.
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