Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a New Deal agency created to generate electric power and control floods in a seven-U.S.-state region around the Tennessee River Valley. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act creating the TVA on May 18, 1933. The agency still exists.

1930s

Even by Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was in sad shape in 1933. Much of the land had been farmed too hard for too long, eroding and depleting the soil.

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Crop yields had fallen along with farm incomes. The best timber had been cut. TVA developed fertilizers, taught farmers how to improve crop yields, and helped replant forests, control forest fires, and improve habitat for wildlife and fish. The most dramatic change in Valley life came from the electricity generated by TVA dams.

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Electric lights and modern appliances made life easier and farms more productive. Electricity also drew industries into the region, providing desperately needed jobs.

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None of this was easy. The development of the dams involved people moving from their homes and the flooding of their land. This naturally led to resentment and an anti-TVA sentiment among some rural communities. Local landowners were naturally suspicious of government agencies. But the TVA successfully introduced new agricultural methods into traditional farming communities. They did this by blending in and finding local champions.

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A Tennessee farmer would not take advice from an official in a suit and tie. The TVA people had to find the leaders in the communities and convince them that crop rotation and the judicious application of fertilizers were the ways to restore the soil's fertility. Once they had convinced the leaders, the rest followed.

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Selling the benefits of electricity would have involved convincing the wives of the farmers that their lives would be easier and letting them work on their menfolk.

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This is another story and belongs more in the electricity marketing history.

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