NEC Quick Poll Answers

3/22/11 Poll Question 

Cities began to receive electricity following Thomas Edison's construction of the first central station electric system in Manhattan in 1882. However, before the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was founded in 1935, what percent of rural homes were WITHOUT electric service?   Answer: 90% of the 6,812,350 rural farms in the US in 1935 had no access to electricity. Electric power had been having a profound effect on life in America's cities for nearly a half-century prior to the advent of of the REA, and the situation was largely responsible for the exodus of many from rural to urban areas. Rural electrification was possible, but not feasible since it would have cost $2,000- $3,000 per mile to connect homes to the "highline." This is approximately $20,000 per mile in today's dollars. Electricity then cost another 12 to 40 cents per kilowatt-hour. Few rural families could afford prices like this when the gross annual income per farm averaged about $1,800. When the Tennessee Valley Authority Act passed in 1933, followed by the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935 and Franklin D. Roosevelt's signing on May 11, 1935 of Executive Order No. 7037 which created the Rural Electrification Administration, the real advances in rural electrification began.

2/1/11 Poll Question

NEC History Quiz: When was NEC founded by its members? Answer: 1938

1/25/11 Poll Question:

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